Work Is A Four Letter Word
by someonestolemyshoes
Summary: Damon Salvatore hates Wednesdays. And his job. And his boss, his computer, his desk chair and hell, his best friend, half of the time. It's a Wednesday that blows A-list celebrity Mason Lockwood into town, and with him comes pretty PA Elena Gilbert, a shit-tonne of emotional baggage, and a roller-coaster that Damon's been on once before. AU/AH. M for language/smut.
1. Chapter 1

**Hands in the air if you agree I have some apologies to make. I am seeing seas of outstretched fingers, so I'll grovel a little before we begin. **

**For those who don't know, or haven't cottoned on to what I'm getting at, I took down Call Day. I'm so sorry to anyone who was reading, but while I had so many ideas for that fic, I couldn't put anything into words. I just couldn't do it, and I tried, honest. But this is an idea that has been bugging me lately and I'm hoping my writing buddies will keep me in check with this one. **

**Quick, obligatory warnings; this story contains some choice language. And there will be smut in later chapters. **

* * *

I'd venture to say that most people peg Monday as the worst day of the week.

For me? Wednesday takes the motherfucking cake.

There's a lot of shit to hate about Wednesday. Like how it isn't the start of the week, and how it isn't the end of the week, and how it isn't close enough to Friday to be remotely enjoyable. And how it's the mile-marker that reminds me, neons and jingles included, that I've still got two whole days to go before the weekend kicks in.

By the time Tuesday nods off and Wednesday blinks the sleep from her eyes, I'm about ready to blow a fuse. Or, my brains out.

See, the one thing I hate more than Wednesday is my job.

I know, _I know_ what you're thinking; journalism is a sweet deal. Decent salary, flexible hours, rub shoulders with a few of the big guns, right? Wrong. Just take whatever misguided notions you've got, wrap them up in a pretty little bow and throw 'em right out the window. Clean slate. Let me explain some things to you.

Journalism might be all glitter and rainbows when you're writing for the _New York Times_ or _Wall Street Journal_, and you might meet a few pretty faces and big names on a good day, but when you slog your guts out for a local-press print that sells maybe four copies if the news is particularly juicy the rose-coloured glasses crash right onto the lino of the office floor.

I lost my specs when I took the job three years ago.

And today is a Wednesday, and I awoke at the ass-crack of dawn and if there's one thing I need this morning, it's a coffee. Maybe a shot of cyanide for flavour.

I follow my usual Wednesday routine when I pull into the parking lot; forehead to the wheel, palms to the dash, dreams to the gutter. There are cars scattered around the lot, a Ford, and a Prius, a big-ass Jeep, and _her_ car.

_She _drives a chariot of fucking fire, Cerberus all but snarling at her heels.

Bonnie smiles at me over her hell-cart and it's all malice and little of anything else. Looks that way to me, anyhow. Bonnie Bennett is my boss, and my boss is an A-grade asshole.

I slam my car door shut and apologise to her as I do, because it isn't her fault it's not Friday. That's one thing I love about my car. She doesn't complain when I fuck up and she always accepts my apologies with grace, purring for me when I come back at the end of my shift and taking me wherever the hell I want to go to wind down.

"If you talk shit with your car any longer you'll be late, Salvatore."

And wouldn't that be just _awful_.

"Get a move on," Bonnie says, something like excitement flashing in her eyes. Like she's got anything to be excited about. She might be the _boss_, but she's the boss of a small-town print with like, six functioning employees and maybe fourteen regulars who turn up to the office every morning for a little shut-eye while the phones don't ring and the articles don't write themselves.

The main floor is – weirdly - bustling when I finally clock in and make my way to my desk space. We're not fancy enough for cubicles, but I do get my own area, complete with a corded phone and a swanky computer that I have to make nice with before I load up any pages or it freaks and shuts me out and I have to give it time to cool off before I can boot it up again.

I'm fortunate enough to share my immediate airspace with a buddy of mine, Enzo, who's already seated and booted up and chatting animatedly in a charming British accent that he should have lost already after years of living state-side. He's leaning right back in his seat, fingers laced and resting against his stomach. Enzo's desk chair is way pallier than mine. Never once has he been ass to the sky on his shoulder blades on the office floor because the screws in _his_ chair are tight enough to support his weight when he sits back.

I hate this place.

But, it does good coffee. I set my Styrofoam cup on the desk and nod to Enzo.

"Morning." He mouths the greeting and bobs his head as whoever he's speaking to relays whatever information they have to give him.

"The hell is it so busy for?"

I press the big glow-y _on_ button and listen to the whir of the fan as my fossil begins the loading process. Enzo rocks further back in his chair and holds up a finger. I wait while he notes down a few details, then hangs up the phone.

"Boss says there's big news coming. Thus far," he grunts when he pushes himself upright to tap something on his keyboard, "I'm unimpressed."

Small-town journalism breeds papers full of those stories you read in gossip rags, the ones with headers like '_There's A Ghost in My Womb'_ and _'My Brother's Going to be My Babies Uncle…and His Daddy'_. Mystic Falls doesn't do news like daily papers in the big cities. We print a new issue Sunday evening, available for sale when the store doors swing open at god-knows what time Monday morning. And the stories are rarely news worthy.

Each day is the same; we roll into the office no later than nine-oh-two – because if Bonnie became too lenient she might literally implode and then where the hell would we be – and we fuck around with our contacts until we find something even remotely report-worthy. And once we've got a possible story, we email it to Bonnie, and she thumbs it up or mows it down and if we're lucky, we start writing. If not, back to the drawing board.

It's not often we strike gold, but sometimes we get lucky.

And sometimes A-List celebrities rock into town and the emails pour in and the phone lines ring on and on and every writer in the office fucks themselves sideways and prayers promises of the most sinful kind for the chance of a five minute interview.

I have seven emails waiting in my inbox, and each one has a subject heading that's some variation of 'Oh my sweet baby Jesus, Mason Lockwood'.

_I swear down Damon, I saw Mason Lockwood _MASON FREAKING LOCKWOOD _in the Grill. _

_Hello Damon, it's Liz. I'm just messaging to tell you there's a celebrity in town and it might be good for the paper. Maybe try for an interview, he seems nice. _

The most recent one, from my pal Alaric, came through ten minutes ago.

_Dude, get your ass over here. That guy from that movie is hanging around and I'm day drinking alone. _

Well shit, this is unfathomably better than writing another article on the weird scratching noises the holding cell in the police department makes, or the leak in the water mains that's been going on for centuries now and no matter how many times I write about it, nobody comes out to fix it.

Ric answers on the third ring.

"He still there?" I jerk out the words before Ric has time to greet me.

"Morning to you too, sunshine." He's all false sweetness and I roll my eyes.

"Hope you slept well, pookie. Is he still there?"

Ric puffs out an exasperated sigh and his glass clunks down onto the bar, earning a world-class eye roll from me. And I thought I had a drinking problem.

"Affirmative."

"Great. All going to plan, I'll be there soon."

Like I said, for any other story I'd go through Bonnie to get permission to follow up my leads, but like hell am I waiting an hour to have my request turned down while some junior brown-noser stammers his way through a middle-school-questionnaire style interview.

I've got to admit, grudgingly, that celebrity gossip is pretty damn high on the list of people's priorities and if I've got even a minuscule chance of landing an interview with this Mason guy, then fuck if I'm wasting any more time biting my nails behind my damn desk.

* * *

It took a shitload of Googling and emailing and phone-calling but, by the time the clock hands round in on eleven, I'm in my car on the way to the Grill – the town's only half-way decent bar and restaurant – with a pen and notepad, a voice recorder, and a proud as punch grin on my face. Because I pulled a few strings, promised a few favours, and finally, _finally_ got put through to Mason's agent. Mason's agent spoke to Mason's PA, who managed to hook me up with a half-hour interview at the bar. Stipulations; no personal questions, business only; no photography; and be there by eleven fifteen.

I stroll through the doors at sixteen minutes past. Not a bad effort.

I spot Mason right away.

I knew next to nothing about the guy before nine o'clock this morning, but in between emails and phone calls I took the time to find every finite detail about this man available to me online. He's an actor, stars in rom-coms and comedies for the most part. Model. Philanthropic. Playboy. Lives in LA, properties in everywhere. I read a lot more than that, but the details aren't all that important to note. As long as I know where the world stands on Mason Lockwood, I'm set for this interview.

"Mr. Lockwood," I hold out a hand to him when I reach the table and he darts to shake it. He smiles up at me.

"Mr…" I don't miss the way his eyes dart to the napkin on the table in front of him before he continues, "Salvatore, is it?"

I nod.

"Pleasure to meet you."

"Yeah, yeah." Rude. Mason cranes his neck to get a view of the bar, and gestures with a wave of his hand for me to take a seat. "Hope you don't mind waiting for my PA to get back before we begin."

"Not at all," I say, even though like hell I do mind. It's almost nineteen minutes past eleven. I was sworn to punctuality under denial of interview, who the hell does this guy think he is? I didn't get to speak to his PA personally, but I've already got a fair idea of what kind of a dickbag he might be.

Still, nothing I can do but wait.

Mason swills something amber in a tumbler and knocks it back and I watch it go almost longingly, but I can't indulge because it's Wednesday, and I'm here, with two days until the weekend, as a professional.

It's closing in on twenty-seven minutes past when Mason sits himself upright and smiles, all kinds of charismatic with just a hint of something dirty and lurid beneath it. I sit up a little straighter. I'm not much of a player, but I know that smile and I've _done _that smile and it's not something you throw around in a bar before 8pm on a Friday night.

A pretty young thing with wide brown eyes stalls beside the table when she sees me –_ me_, even though I'm burning the same air as a literal model – before she gathers herself up and scrapes out the seat right beside Mason. He slings an arm over the back of her chair.

"Mr. Salvatore, I presume."

No preamble there, then. Alrighty.

"You'd assume correct." I smile at her, gentle and professional and everything Mason's smile wasn't. She returns it with one of her own and shoots a hand across the table for me to shake. Jesus, her skin is soft.

"I'm Elena Gilbert, Mason's Personal Assistant."

I wasn't expecting that. Couldn't say why, but I'd made the assumption Mason's PA was male. Older, too. High school head master is what I was picturing. Not fresh-out-of-college bombshell. That was just, so far out of the realm of possibilities. _Sexist asshole, Salvatore. _

I roll her name on my tongue a couple times, but don't say anything out loud. Elena rearranges some papers in front of her and I watch the way her torso shimmies as she crosses her legs beneath the table.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she says, and she winces like the thought burned her. "I'm getting a lot of phone calls about similar interviews. I've had to tell so many people no in the last ten minutes, it's crazy."

I'm all kinds of smug inside, but I know it won't be long until I've got Bonnie breathing fire over the phone because I broke protocol, so I jump straight to the point.

"Are we good to get started?"

Elena glances at Mason, who smiles that smile that makes my spine crack right into place, and she translates his grimy grin as a yes.

I set the recording going on my Dictaphone and pick up my pen. In my notepad I've already scribbled some topics I could discuss, and the most pressing one stands bolded, underlined and highlighted at the top of the page.

"We're a small town," I begin, and I know Mason knows where I'm going, "we don't see a lot of A-list action. What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

Elena looks antsy, like there's something she wants to say, but this is Mason's interview and she's here as a mediator only, to make sure Lockwood doesn't rattle any of the skeletons in his own closet, so she keeps her mouth shut. Mason shrugs a shoulder.

"Just passing through."

He picks a speck of something from his pant leg, and levels a gaze at me that's something like a challenge. I've been here before, but never with someone as high-profile as Mason Lockwood.

Bottom line is, there's just some shit people don't want to tell you about. And when, for example, somebodies PA gives you strict guidelines on what you can and can't ask about, and you're on the verge of breaking one of their rules, the dick you're interviewing gets all cocky knowing your times almost up and you've blown your chance.

Fat luck, Mason. I know that trick.

"You've picked a nice time to stop by. Mystic Falls is beautiful in the spring."

"Couldn't agree more," Mason replies, quick and rehearsed, like he's said the same thing a thousand times before. I have no doubt he has.

"Movie promotion, perhaps?"

"Something like that."

I'm irked by every vague answer, but I keep my cool and plaster my smile in place and scribble something he can't see in my notepad. _You're an asshole,_ is what it says, but I'm well-practiced in teeny-tiny handwriting so nobody in the office can read my shit and steal it for their own articles (like they'd ever want to, but better safe than sorry, right?).

"Or charity work, maybe. I'm sure most of the town has read all about your latest ventures."

Mason's right eye twitches, just a little, right in the corner, but I spot it and the me in my head bows way down. At some point in the last two minutes this has become a pissing contest, and I'm going for the gold.

"Could well be."

Why this guy is so defensive, I have no clue. Elena glances between the two of us and she looks almost apologetic, and there's this twitch right between her eyes that looks like it might settle into a frown if she doesn't keep it in check. I don't know, but I'm sure there's no way Elena _can't _feel every ounce of tension brewing between Mason and me.

The arm he's got hanging over the back of her chair rests right against her shoulders and his fingertips dance up and down the skin of her arm. Watching him do it, flirt his nails back and forth and back and forth, and thinking about the smiles he sends her way has my hackles raised like they haven't been in a long while.

I finish the interview by the time the clock ticks over to quarter to. The minute I switch off the Dictaphone, Mason waves down a waitress and orders himself a double bourbon, neat. Just the way I like it.

Elena gives him a troubled look when she says,

"Maybe you should wait until later, Mason."

I might've been unhappy with his pervy smiles, and it might've unsettled me every time he touched her so casually during our short meeting, but I feel a little bit of me darken with something like dread at the gaze he shoots her now. It's cold, and there's a menace there that has me glued to my seat.

"I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions."

I pretend to ignore them while I gather up my notepad and slip the Dictaphone in my pocket. Mason's voice is low as he continues, but I catch him say,

"I don't need you playing the hero again, Elena."

I almost, _almost_ whistle.

"Well, thanks for your time." I stand up, ducking away from the waitress as she drops Mason's glass to the table. "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Lockwood."

We shake hands again, and his grip is a little tighter than it was earlier. Nice to meet you my ass, Mason. I proffer my hand to Elena.

"And you, Ms. Gilbert."

She smiles, and shoots a glance between Mason and the waitress, who've taken up a conversation full of innuendos and bedroom eyes, and Elena is about to say something to me when my phone jumps to life in my pocket.

"I'm sorry, I've got to run."

Boss is calling, and I am in for a _world_ of pain.

* * *

**So, there we have chapter one! As a rough guide; I plan on updating once a week (life permitting), and each chapter should be around the 3,000 word mark. I'm hoping for 20 chapters, but don't hold me to that. **

**I'd like to thank my babies Jenn (Elvishgrrl) and Mara (AnglcDmn1986) for reading/providing pointers/giving me a confidence boost/being all around stars. Jenn has plenty of fics up on fanfiction and they're all rockin' and you should go check them out right now (and if you read The Shattered Mirror, _which you should_, have tissues ready. Lot's of 'em) Mara's fic _All This Time_ is available on Kindle Worlds and that's another must-read. I can also assure you she's working on the sequel. She's also working on lots of original novels that you should totally check out, too. **

**Enough of the promotions, though. Reviews feed my soul and in the immortal words of Jenn: 'You need an ego boost'. Build me up or shoot me down, either way, drop me a review and let me know what you think, yeah? Okay. You're angels and I love you. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Um...okay...**

**Wow. **

**Your responses to the last lone chapter have been INCREDIBLE. I am just so _blown away. _19 reviews. 20 favourites. 43 followers. I don't even know how to begin thanking you all, this is so, so far from anything I could have ever expected. Thank you all so much. Sending out so much love right now. You'll get your answers soon enough, I promise. **

**One caveat, though. **

**I received two pretty...strongly spoken reviews, both pertaining to the fic I removed and, well, completely dicking on this one. Which is kind of sad, but you can't please everyone, right? I did remove them (which might have been cowardly of me, but they were just so negative and bitter), but I did read them and I did take what they had to say into account, and I will say; **

**I'm not giving up on Call Day. I took it down because I've already restarted it once in the same fic, and I had twice as many reviews as it deserved and I didn't at all want to restart it a third time. I took it down so that I could revise it and improve it and I am sorry to anyone I have let down. It'll be back one day, just...hold out, okay? **

**Apologies for the insanely long note, but that shit needed to be said. **

**Now! On with chapter two. **

**Obligatory content warning; once again, plenty of language. **

* * *

Thank fuck it's Friday.

While Enzo and I spend five days a week working our asses off under Bonnie's tyrannical office rule and scraping the figurative barrel as far as wages are concerned, Alaric makes a buck load sitting on his backside with a drink in his hand and documenting his life's many woes in complex allegorical novels that I keep promising I'll get around to reading one day.

So, by the time Friday rolls around, Enzo and I are always, _always _ready for a pick-me-up drink or three, and Alaric? Well, he's always along for the ride.

But first; work.

I wasn't wrong in assuming Bonnie would tear me a new one for interviewing Mason Lockwood without going through her first, and I took the gutting she gave me like a champ while every worker in the office did a shitty job at pretending not to listen. I made a conscious effort to burn _most_ of the details from my memory, but I can say with the utmost certainty that Bonnie Bennett has a vocabulary far more colorful than I've _ever_ given her credit for. And a tongue sharper than her talons.

She chewed me up, spat me out, chewed me up some more and all but vomited her disdain for my actions all over the office lino.

But, it paid off.

Because it's five-forty-eight, Friday evening, and I'm adding the finishing touches to the article she grudgingly let me write. Since I weaselled my way in under the radar, nobody else had managed to snag an interview, and it'd be a ball-shrinkingly cold day in Hell before the boss would miss the opportunity to feature quotes from a movie star in her paper.

I'm trying to concentrate on finishing up before the clock strikes six and I'm officially in overtime – _on a Friday_ -, but I'm fighting an uphill battle.

And _fuck _am I out of shape.

I'm not a natural-born writer. Eloquence doesn't come all that easy to me, and it's fucking hard, fitting the format Bonnie wants from every article I spew out. It's been so damn long since I wrote anything half-way decent that I'm struggling to string two words together.

Thankfully, I've had copious cups of office coffee, and a Bonnie-free environment to work in. For _once_ I've actually got shit to get on with. And she can leave me well-the-fuck alone.

On the other side of my monitor, Enzo is swivelling side to side in his chair, tapping the ends of his pen against the desk and humming the tune to some folk shit I neither listen to, nor care about.

"Shut the fuck up for five minutes," I grumble and smack the keys on my keyboard a little too vigorously. Enzo laughs, like it was some kind of fucking joke. Prick.

"What's got your knickers in a twist?"

_Knickers_. Who the fuck does he think he is.

I do my best impression of withering with a side of fuck-you over my computer and refuse to admit, out loud, that I'm still narked over the reaming Bonnie gave me after my interview with Mason.

I'm still pissed about the interview itself, too, and there's a knot in my stomach where something suspiciously like guilt has been winding itself up tighter and tighter since I left the Grill on Wednesday. And if there's one thing I don't _do_, it's guilty. But, there's something about the way Mason had eyed his PA before Bonnie called and I ran for the hills with my tail in its rightful place - firmly between my legs - that makes me squirm.

Still, nothing I can do about it now. I do one more read through and, satisfied that what I've produced isn't complete and utter bullshit, I email it through for editing as the second hand on the wall clock ticks it's way past nine and the minute hand creeps a little closer to twelve.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; being a journalist sucks. Being a journalist for a teeny-weeny small town print sucks even harder. It's fucking miserable, working five days a week in literal Hell with Lucifer hovering over your shoulder in a 5"2 meatsuit, your balls in one hand and your self-preservation instincts in the other.

But I've learned to appreciate the small victories.

Small victories, like finishing your motherfucking article with seconds to spare and logging out of your computer just as the clock…strikes…

I drop my head and throw my hands to the sky, and Enzo starts a slow, building applause. Six PM, on the dot. Sweet, sweet success.

"Bravo!" Enzo is on his feet for a standing ovation and I bow to my beloved crowd.

"Thank you, thank you," I blow a kiss over the desk and he catches it, swooning back in his chair. "I'll be here all week."

Enzo snorts.

"Get a move on," he leans over and flips the switch on the wall socket that shuts my monitor off. "We have a whole weeks' worth of drinking to catch up on."

Fan-fucking-tastic.

* * *

Fridays at the Grill are always, always eventful. The owners throw a different bash every week and it's usually something hilarious, or delicious, and occasionally, both.

This week they've gone for a good old-fashioned carvery.

The place is packed, but Enzo and I manage to wrestle our way to the bar where Ric, god bless his soul, has saved a couple of bar stools just for us.

"Hello, sweetheart," Enzo croons, one elbow braced on the bar. The sweet blonde barmaid, Caroline, flushes pink from cheek to cheek and right over the bridge of her nose and I don't know how the _fuck_ Enzo does it, but I can see her crossing her thighs to keep her downstairs in check while she waits for him to order.

"We'll get three double bourbons, no ice." He hitches the corner of his mouth a little further up his cheek in a move I _know_ he learned from me, and Caroline bites the inside of her lip as she gathers three glasses and pulls the bourbon down from the shelf. Caroline _always_ gives us the good stuff, though she charges just a little less whenever Enzo buys the round. No complaints on my end.

"So, Damon," Alaric begins, weight on his forearm as he leans against the bar. He tilts his head over to one side. "You got your first real glimpse of Hollywood. What'd you think?"

I scowl into the glass Caroline hands me and gulp it down in one. There's something about the burn that kills the bitterness brewing in my gut when I think about my interview with Mason Lockwood.

"I've got some pretty choice opinions," I say, sliding my glass back to Caroline. She raises a brow, and I wave a hand and _oh_ _man_ am I glad Caroline is serving tonight. She's always liberal with her measurements when one of us has had a bad day.

"Do tell."

I watch Enzo drain his glass, and Caroline re-fills it without being told.

"You ever just get a really bad feeling," I say, so quiet I'm not sure my audience even heard, but then it occurs to me that I should maybe just start-like all good stories do-from the beginning.

Enzo and Ric are quiet as I talk, and Caroline hovers beside Enzo's shoulder to listen. I tell them about Mason's evasive answers to every god damn question, and the possessive hands he kept on his PA, and the way he leered at her and spoke to her and the gut-clenching anxiety the whole damn situation gives me. Caroline is frowning by the time I'm done, and, perceptive as ever, she voices the one thought that's been plaguing me for the last forty-eight hours.

"You don't think he's…abusive to her or anything, do you?"

I scrub a hand over my face and tilt my glass, watching the light bounce off the tumbler and through the amber before I knock back the remainder of the drink.

"I don't know," I say through gritted teeth. What I _do_ know is that it fucks me off that it's bothering me so much. "I don't know, and I shouldn't care."

Caroline's face falls into this wide-eyed, sympathetic pout she always does whenever Enzo, Ric or me show any signs that we just might have_ feelings_. I hold up a finger to shush her before she preaches any opinions I don't care to hear.

"Let's just drop it." I rap on the bar with my knuckles and gesture to my empty glass. "I'm dry."

Caroline rolls her eyes, and she's reaching for the bourbon bottle to fill me for a third time when a delicate red-nailed hand slaps onto the bar and somebody huffs out a breath right against my shoulder. There's a strong smell of something sweet, like cherry or strawberry or some other fruity, feminine shit, and I turn my head to see Elena Gilbert, rosy cheeked and a little breathless, leaning her palms on the edge of the bar and stretching to look at the drinks on the rack.

During the interview on Wednesday she'd been wearing formal attire; black pencil skirt and a plain white blouse buttoned right up to the collar, and her hair had been clipped back all professional and business like. Now, though, she's wearing dark jeans that fit her like a second skin, and a shirt that's cut low enough to show off plenty of cleavage and just a tease of lace from the top of her bra.

And well shit, if she isn't wearing a leather freakin' jacket.

Fuck me.

She's got her hair down, too, falling wavy over her back like she's slept with it braided. I'm not sure, but I think I catch a glimpse of pink in amongst the brown before she turns her head so she's facing me.

"Elena, right?" I say, and I see Enzo and Ric exchange glances out the corner of my eye. Enzo has a shit-eating smirk on his face, and I send him the most discrete middle-finger salute I can manage when I'm sure Elena's gaze isn't too focused on me.

"Yeah," she says. The corner of her eye pinches a little and she screws her mouth to one side, then points a finger at my chest and adds, "Damon."

I smile, and nod, and tell myself I'm a fucking idiot.

"Nice to see you again." The sentence falls a little flat as she starts relaying her drink order to Caroline and shit, I know I'm nowhere close to Enzo's league of dexterity when it comes to picking up women, but I'm never this damn _useless_ at talking to them. _Get your shit together, Salvatore_.

"Want the bourbon neat?" Caroline's voice pulls me out of my stupor and Elena nods to her and she's all pretty smiles and bright eyes and when she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear she hits me with another wave of whatever it is that smells so _good_.

"Please."

Caroline drops three shot glasses on the bar and fills them with something colourless that reeks an awful lot like aniseed. Elena picks the first up and knocks it back, then reaches for the second.

I raise a brow as she swallows down the third and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. She smiles at me, equal parts impish and sheepish, and I feel like the biggest fucking creep on the planet for staring but _shit,_ was that impressive. Girl didn't even flinch.

I'm not a complete moron. I know people have a work persona; put on a front for the daily bump and grind and hold it together until the weekend and then, let the animal loose. I'm a guilty party.

But Elena?

_This_ Elena is so far from anything I would have associated with the woman I met while interviewing Mason.

She gestures to the empty shot glasses and says, "Necessary," then leans both elbows on the bar and rests her chin on her hand as Caroline pours the rest of her drinks. I turn to Enzo and Ric, and blow out a low whistle that I pray Elena doesn't hear.

"Back for more interviews?" I tease, and Elena shakes her head on this soft, breathy kind of laugh.

"Tonight is for fun," she says. There's a twinkle in her eye that makes something in my stomach flip. "PA's get to let loose once in a while, too."

I raise my hands in surrender, adjust by feet so that one is tucked onto the bar of the stool and the other is planted firmly on the floor. My knee brushes against her hip, but if it bothers her, she doesn't show it.

"So I see."

I tip my head to the glasses and I expect her to blush, but she just widens her grin and winks. Fucking winks at me. Who is this girl?

"That'll be fourteen dollars."

Caroline rests her forearm on the Guinness tap as Elena ratches around in her purse for the money and I utter the single dumbest phrase to leave my mouth to date.

"I'll get this round."

Caroline raises one perfectly plucked brow at me and takes the money I proffer. I give her enough to cover both the drinks and my refill, and Elena frowns.

"You really don't have to do that," she says, and she doesn't sound all too grateful, but I brush off her tone and shrug a shoulder, throwing her wink right back at her.

"My treat, hero."

She flushes a pretty shade of pink and her eyes drop to the bar. I watch as she dances her fingers along the edge of a beer mat and that frown dips into place right at the top of her nose. Fuck, she's all kinds of cute. And I should not be thinking that.

"Look, Damon-,"

I raise a hand to cut her off before she makes any crazy accusations that may or may not hold a little truth.

"I'm not being a creep," I say, "just…take it as a thank you, for setting me up with the interview."

Elena smiles appreciatively, and ducks behind her hair.

"You're just lucky you were the first to try," she says, grinning. And then she adds, "I'm sorry for the way Mason acted. He's a good guy, but he can be…difficult. I know that. Believe me, I do. And he shouldn't have been drinking so early in the day. It's unprofessional."

Alaric chokes on his drink behind me, and Elena's frown falls right back into place as she watches him scramble for air through a lungful of bourbon. Enzo reaches over and claps him, hard, between the shoulder blades and he gives Elena two thumbs up when she asks if he's alright.

"Yeah," I hum, standing beside the window Elena has inadvertently thrown open for me and trying to find the best way to clamber through it. "Is he always that snippy?"

It takes her a little too long to answer.

"No." Is what she finally settles with, "He's just under a lot of stress at the moment. I mean, we're stuck right on the corner where Nothing meets Nowhere, Virginia, and we're here for the foreseeable future and…"

And Elena pauses, her eyes big and brown and comically round, like she's said something she shouldn't have. She picks up the bourbon from the bar, and the double vodka orange, and she levels her gaze to mine and suddenly, her presence feels intimidatingly large. She's slipped right back into business mode and there isn't even a little residual fuzz from the Sambuca's she so expertly drank.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't say anything about that. _I _shouldn't have said anything."

I nod my consent before I have time to think about it. She shrinks back down to size with a sag of her shoulders and a grateful smile.

"Thanks." She raises her glass to Caroline, nods to Alaric and Enzo, and says, "See you around, Damon."

And just like that she's gone, vanished in the crowd.

"You know her?" Caroline asks with her arms folded across her chest in a look that might be judging and might be amused, and I'm honestly not sure which I'd prefer.

"That," I say, pointing a finger into the mass of bodies. "Was Elena. Mason Lockwood's PA."

I tap out an unsteady rhythm against the bar with my tumbler and worry the inside of my lip between my teeth. There's a kaleidoscope of emotions passing over Caroline's face; concern, and confusion, and something like lust, and a little more confusion, until she finally settles on a frown.

"She seems…nice. Cheery."

Super fucking observant of you, Caroline.

* * *

There are some images that just…stick with you. Like seeing your mother cry, or watching the Grim Reaper by your fathers bedside and waiting for him to take what he's gambled and won.

As of now, I'm burned by the look in Elena's eyes when she'd realised she'd spoken out of turn.

I'm not sure, but it rang alarmingly like fear.

* * *

**And that's a rap on chapter two. **

**Don't forget to be angels and leave a review to let me know what you think. I just...I love writing this Damon a lot, and I love knowing what you think of him! **

**I would like to say a huge thank you to Jenn (Elvishgrrl) and Mara (AnglcDmn1986), for betaing/editing/encouraging me/constantly reminding me I'm not _totally_ useless/listening to me gush about how incredible all of YOU are/a whole host of other things I've not mentioned. And to show my gratitude I'm going to direct you to The Shattered Mirror, which you can find right here on fanfiction (one of my absolute favourite fics argh so good), Dear Miss Lonely Love (also on fanfiction, also wonderful), and, if you head on over to Kindle Worlds, you can find Mara's fic All This Time, which is another fantastic read. Just...read all the stuff. **

**And don't forget to review those fics too! Writers really do like knowing your thoughts, you're who we write for, after all! **

**Much love, and other four letter words, **

**Someone x **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for the amazing feedback I've gotten from just two chapters I love you all. Your reviews and follows and favourites just make my day, so keep 'em coming! Sorry this update took so long, I moved back to uni last week and I was super swamped digging up dead people. So, this chapter is a little longer for you. **

**Obligatory content warning; choice language and all that jazz. **

Much as I'll preach my abhorrence of Wednesdays to any soul willing to listen, I'll admit that Mondays do suck pretty fucking hard.

This particular Monday is already rivaling any mid-week nightmare you could throw at me.

Suns up and the birds are chirping, and some fucker somewhere in the house is laughing his ass off like there's no damn tomorrow. My alarm clock says it's six AM; also known as too _fucking early_. Another burst of laughter, this one decidedly more feminine than the first, rockets up from the floor below me and well shit, I'm not getting any more sleep today.

My mattress is old as fuck, and the springs screech like crazy when I stretch myself out under the duvet, and there's a biting chill in the air that catches the skin of my forearms when I scrub my hands over my face. That's the thing about the weather in Mystic Falls; doesn't matter that we're passing the baton from spring to summer, if Mother Nature wants it to be cold, it's gonna be _cold_.

I'm still rubbing the sleep from my eyes when I turn the shower on, and my brain's fuzzy right up until the ice water sprays against my chest and the wind flies right out of me. It takes a few minutes for the water to heat up, and I would have remembered that, if I'd had an extra hour to fucking sleep on it.

I'm dried, dressed and ready to cut a bitch by a quarter to and I stroll into the kitchen, where three faces turn to look right at me.

Two belong to strangers I couldn't give a flying fuck about, and the third?

The third belongs to my mother.

I have my mother to thank for a couple of things; my dark hair, and my blue eyes, and twenty-three of my chromosomes; and I have my pops to thank for the rest. Mom is short where I'm tall, and she's all smiles and pleasantries where I'm scowls and a double bourbon, and she's an early bird where I am fucking not.

"Morning," I say, and I smile my bitterness right at her. She has the decency to look guilty for all of .2 seconds before she grins at me and waves a hand in the general direction of the coffee maker.

"G'morning, Damon. Sleep well?"

I don't even dignify her with a response.

"This is Matt, and Rebekah."

Matt and Rebekah nod at me and flash brilliant white-toothed smiles and I consider drowning the pair of them in their orange juice, but instead, I pour myself a deep mug of liquid sanity and drain a mouthful before the temperature really registers. It fucking scalds its way down.

"Pleasure," I gasp while the coffee corrodes its way into my stomach.

"They're with us until Saturday."

It's like…it's like she's _trying_ to fuck me off.

Despite my every insistence that she shouldn't, momma-dearest still keeps the old building as a boarding house. Gives her something to do, I suppose, seeing as she never fucking leaves the place. Its times like these, when her guests wake me up at fuck-off-o'clock in the morning and have the audacity to smile at me about it that I like to pull out a newspaper or two and check the local property listings.

But then…well, there are other things that force me to stay.

"You're up early."

I swear, I _swear_, she's laughing on the inside and when I turn to look at her I can see horns big enough to rival Bonnie's poking out from under her hair.

"Yeah, I am," I reply, "a whole lot earlier than usual, actually." I pause, scratch my head, "It's weird, something must have woke me."

"Isn't that strange," she says, and just fucking ignores me. She turns to Matt and Rebekah and re-fills their coffee mugs. "This is my son, Damon."

Matt looks almost _amused_ at that, like it's funny that a twenty-five year old man would live in his mothers home and-

-and he might not be wrong, but that doesn't stop me wanting to punch him in the fucking face.

I drain another mouthful of coffee and pointedly pour the rest down the drain, and I can _feel_ the scowl my mother is giving me burning right through the back of my head because damn, she fucking _hates_ when I waste anything.

"I think I'll grab breakfast out. Plenty of time to kill before work, after all."

I spat that last part through gritted teeth and Mom just looks amused, while Matt and Rebekah look oblivious.

Fuckers.

* * *

I'm early to work, for once, and just as I've passed through Hells Gates and into the fire I pause.

Everybody has their eyes on their computers. Even Stefan, who is by far the laziest piece of shit worker Bonnie has ever had the pure stupidity to hire, is tapping away at his keyboard like he's at least pretending to do something for once in his miserable fucking life.

A few gazes dart my way and some of them look gleeful, others apprehensive, and others just plain hungry, but they all drop right back down again when they catch me staring, and by the time I reach my desk space I'm feeling more than a little hot under the collar. Like walking through a pack of hyenas in this fucking place.

Luckily, my buddy Enzo is always there to fill me in on the office gossip.

"You, my man," he says as I boot up my computer, "are in deep shit."

What the fuck? Enzo leans back in his chair and laces his fingers against his stomach, and my chair creaks something awful when I take a seat.

"The hell did I do?"

"Let me ask you something." Enzo taps his pen end-to-end against the desk, then levels his gaze to mine. "Have you ever envisioned yourself as the center piece to a spit-roast?"

"Can't say it's on my bucket list, why?"

Enzo grins that shit-eating smile of his.

"Because word on the floor is that Mason Lockwood has your precious little backside firmly in his sites, and it sounds like Bonnie wants a piece of the action, too."

Just what I need this morning. I scrub a hand over my face and type my log-in details into the computer.

"And did the grape-vine happen to tell you _why_ Bonnie wants to tear me a new one?"

Enzo's grin spreads and I want to smack it off his smug fucking face.

"Mason made a complaint about the article you wrote," he says, "he said it was 'spiteful' and that it painted him in a negative light, and was _harmful to his career_. As I hear it he's trying to knock you out of a job."

I fail to see what's fucking funny about that. Enzo must see the color drain from my face because he barks out a laugh and sits forward in his chair, eyeing me over my monitor.

"Unclench. The reason Bonnie wants a bite is because she's having to work a fuck-tonne of damage control to deal with Mason's mighty backlash. Thing is, Damon, the website has had more hits since the article went live this morning than it's had, _ever_."

"That has to be a gross exaggeration," I say. I take a sip of good, fresh office coffee and my nerves take a breath and start pulling their shit together. Enzo shrugs a shoulder.

"Maybe a small one," he says. "My point is, the website has blown up this morning and I'll bet your inbox is looking just as pretty as mine."

Enzo spins his monitor and I lean forward, glancing at the long, long list of bolded emails.

It was Bonnie's bright idea to create a website for the paper a couple years back, in some last ditch effort to reel in a larger audience. It failed spectacularly, of course, because we're a small town in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, Virginia, and nobody gives a shit what our inbred paper has to say about anything.

Until today.

I log into my emails and sure enough, there are over thirty queries forwarded from the website right into my inbox. Holy shit.

On average the site gets maybe fifty hits a day, and ten questions, give or take. The queries get distributed between our twenty different addresses, so we're damn lucky (or unlucky, I suppose) if we've got even one email to answer.

Enzo whistles and I snap my eyes back up to him.

"What the fuck," is all I can say.

"What the fuck is right, Salvatore."

I don't know if you've ever faced down certain death, but there's this chill that travels right up your spine and sets your shoulders a foot higher than they usually sit and the little hairs on the back of your neck really _do_ stand on end and all of these things happen to me now.

I spin my chair, oh so slowly, and come face to face with Satan.

"Bonnie," I say, curt, with a little nod that might have been a nervous twitch.

"My office." She turns on her heel and disappears down the corridor, and I spin back to face Enzo with my brows raised. We joke about a lot of shit, Enzo and I, but even he's looking a little peaky. Bonnie Bennett is a force to be reckoned with, and he fucking knows it.

"Dude." There's desperation in my tone and I don't even care. "You can't just throw me to the dogs."

Enzo shrugs his shoulders, fingertips to the sky in surrender.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Damon!" Bonnie's voice barks down the corridor.

"Have a little compassion," I hiss. Enzo sighs.

"It was nice knowing you, mate."

"Now!" She's damn near fucking growling _fuck_. This is it, this is what certain death sounds like.

"If I'm not back in an hour," I whisper as I tuck my chair under the desk and straighten out my tie, "call the police."

I revoke my earlier statement; walking past the rows of desks and office workers isn't like brandishing an open wound to wild animals. It's like walking the mile to the electric chair. There isn't a single grin in the office, and when I look back into the room from the door way, Enzo offers me a heart-felt salute.

I take a seat in the chair Bonnie kicks out for me the minute I step into the room.

"You," she says. Nothing more, just '_you_'.

"Me."

"Don't joke around, Damon. This isn't _funny_. Mason Lockwood has been on my ass all morning because of _your_ article, and do you know how many phone calls I've had to make today?"

I weigh up my options as the silence drags on. I could a) take a guess and have all hell unleashed upon me, b) make a sarcastic comment and have all hell unleashed upon me, or c) say nothing, and invariably have all hell unleashed upon me.

"I don't even know," she continues, "I lost count. I've called lawyers and advisors and agents and PA's and publicists and Barack Obama and the goddamn _Queen_ to get you out of this mess. In all my years here I have _never_ had an employee cause me this much trouble. Never."

I look to my knotted fingers and swallow down my blush. It's like being scolded by a fucking teacher and I'm a _twenty five year old man_, for fucks sake.

"That being said," Bonnie continues, and she's a little calmer, now, "your article? Was magnificent. The paper has never seen this much attention, not in all the time I've worked here."

"Thank you," I say, and I'm more than a little taken aback by the compliment. Bonnie doesn't _do_ compliments.

"And for that reason, your job is safe. But please _God_ Salvatore, don't _ever_ cause me this much grief again. Stick to that load about the water mains and we should be good."

Was that…was that a smile?

Lucifer just _smiled_ at me. What a time to be alive.

"Is that all?" I ask, because I need to leave now and hunt down my masculinity, maybe some fertilizer for the balls I desperately need to grow. Bonnie nods to me.

"Get out."

Because it wouldn't have been a meeting with the boss if she didn't get the last word.

* * *

I'm at my desk space, talking shit with Enzo when my phone rings. Unrecognized number. I consider ignoring it, but, you know, it's sometimes funny to rag the sales losers around for a little while before telling them no, I'm not already paying money to your _charity _and no, I don't want to set up a payment plan because _no, _I'm not giving out my name and address and bank details and dick length and whatever else you need to know about me to scam me to the best of your god damn ability.

But I digress.

It's a cell number, so I answer it after a few rings.

"Damon speaking."

"Hi, Damon."

The voice is soft and sweet and not at all what I was expecting.

"Elena?"

"The one and only," she says it like a joke and I can hear her cringe at herself down the phone. "I was wondering if you were available to meet up for coffee sometime today?"

The clock says 12:02, which means I've got a half hour until lunch.

"I think I can spare some time during my break," I say. Elena hums her acknowledgement.

"And what time would that be?"

"I get off at twelve-thirty. That convenient for you?"

"Perfect," she says. "Where could we meet?"

I'm about to suggest the Grill, but our first meeting there still leaves a sour taste in my mouth and our last…

Our last still makes my stomach fucking curdle.

"Ever been to Rendezvous?"

* * *

Rendezvous is this quaint little coffee shop up a back road right in the center of town. It's tiny, and poorly advertised, but the coffee is good and strong and the food is _incredible_. I'd given Elena directions over the phone, and agreed to meet at a quarter to. On the dot.

I arrive at 12:48. Close enough.

The bell jingles overhead when I finally stroll through the doors and I'm greeted with a blast of warm air billowing from an open fire in the corner. It'd be a welcome relief if the weather had followed this morning's predictions but no, it's almost 90 out and I was behind-the-knees sweaty _before_ I stepped into the furnace.

The thing about Rendezvous is, the woman who owns the place is somewhere in her late three-hundreds, and the sun could be setting the streets ablaze beyond the windows for all she cared, she'd still need the fire on to keep out the draft.

I find Elena holed up in a corner as far away from the flames as possible. She's wearing business pants and a pale blue pin-striped collar shirt, the sleeves rolled right up to her elbows. Just like me, and every other unfortunate fucker in town, she's not dressed for the impromptu heat wave.

The weather in Mystic Falls is fucking bipolar.

"Damon."

She greets me with a smile and gestures to the seat opposite her. On the table is a jumble of papers, and I don't have time to nose at them before she tucks them all away in a manila folder and laces her fingers over the top of it, smiling across at me.

"Sorry I'm late," I say. I flop down into the chair and roll up my sleeves. She turns her wrist, glances at her watch, and her face settles into serious.

"What happened to _on the dot, _Salvatore?"

Salvatore? She sounds like she's teasing, but she's quirking her brow at me, looking all frowny and a little too much like Bonnie for my liking and I cringe back in my chair, but she just smiles and chuckles and my stomach kind of clenches and what the _fuck_ is wrong with me?

"It's alright," she says, and she lifts her mug, "gave me time to get coffee. I would've ordered for you, but I don't know what you like."

Fuck me, her cheeks go the most adorable shade of pink right across the bone and she's gone from light and teasing to all kinds of panicky in no time.

"No worries."

"I did tell the lady I was meeting with somebody, so she might come back. Or I can go and order one now, if you like? Regular coffee? Do you take sugar? I don't really know how things work in here-."

"Elena," I cut her off gently, and I can feel the smile tugging one corner of my mouth up my cheek. "Calm down. Abigail knows how I take it. If she sees me, she'll sort it."

Elena deflates at that and relaxes back in her chair, but then a nervous composure grips her and she pulls at the elastic of a hair tie wrapped around her wrist. It pings back against her a couple times and I watch the soft skin burn red.

"I wanted to apologize," she blurts out. She's got the biggest brown eyes I've ever seen and they're open as wide as they can go as she stares at me over the tiny round table. If I adjust my legs just right, her knees brush right against mine, but I ignore the impulse and turn a little sideways in my seat.

I aim a questioning kind of frown at her. The fuck is she sorry for?

"About Mason," she says. Of _course_ this is about Mason. I should be given a fucking medal, the effort it takes me to refrain from rolling my eyes. "He had no right to act the way he did. Your article…it painted him in a bad light, you understand that?"

"That was my intention," I say, and her eyes stretch impossibly wider, just for a second. I hold my hands up in surrender. "Look, Elena, I'm a journalist. My job is to report whatever information I can get my hands on. I don't lie, and I don't misinform. I'm not sorry for the things I wrote about him."

Elena blinks at me, and I think I might have fucked up something royal, but she just shakes her head slowly and drops her gaze to the table top.

"I know," she says. "I'm not saying you were wrong."

My gut clenches painfully at the confession. She opens her mouth and flounders for a moment, and that little crease settles between her brows before she continues,

"Did you get in trouble?"

I shake my head no.

"No," I say, "my boss fire-walled everything. I got an ass-kicking from her, but other than that…" I settle right back in my chair and grin, something a little cheeky and a lot of smug. "Got off Scot free."

"Good," Elena says, "good."

There's a pause, and as she opens her mouth to add something more, a tiny fossil of a lady arrives at the table and lowers a mug down in front of me. She smiles, eyes twinkling behind her glasses, and chucks my cheek with one gnarled hand.

"Good to see you, boy. It's been a while."

"I know," I say, "I'm sorry I haven't swung by, Abigail. Been swamped at work."

It's a lie, but her beady little eyes light up like a kid on Christmas and I feel a little less guilty.

"That's right! Your article. Read it in the paper just this morning."

She pauses, and turns her eyes on Elena, who's fiddling with the corner of her folder and tucking and re-tucking the same lock of hair behind her ear. Abigail all but fucking _beams_ at me. Here we go.

"And who's this lovely lady, Damon?" Abigail asks. I can feel the tops of my ears turn pink. She's got this…this _thing_, about seeing me out and about with women in my general age range and I know this'll get back to my mother before the day is out and I'll have to deal with _that_ can of worms when I get home.

"This is Elena," I say, "she's a personal assistant. Elena, this is Abigail. Family friend."

Elena blushes, all pretty and nervous and cute as fuck, but she levels Abigail with a gentle stare and smiles softly.

"Pleasure to meet you," Elena says, and Abigail pats her gently on the shoulder.

"And you, my girl." She turns her beady little eyes on me and the smile drops away from her lips. "How're things at home, son? I haven't heard much from your mother since-."

"Things are fine." I cut her off through gritted teeth, a tight smile plastered on my face and I try my hardest to push some pleading behind my gaze. This is _not_ a conversation I want to strike up in front of Elena. Abigail's eyes go all big and round behind her glasses and she nods at me, knocks my arm with her knuckle, and shuffles her way back behind the counter.

It takes me a minute to lift my gaze to Elena, and when I finally do, that spot right at the top of her nose is twitching and I know she's trying _not _to look too curious. She opens her mouth, closes it, and opens it again and settles with,

"I'm glad Mason didn't cause you too much grief."

I do nothing but shrug. My skin feels a couple sizes too tight and I want some fresh air, away from the coffee shop and Abigail and the secrets she almost spilled and the tidal wave that follows them and most of all, the damn near pitiful look Elena is giving me.

I don't even excuse myself, just jerk from the table and wind my way back out the door until the sunlight hits my skin and there's the tiniest breeze in the air, and I can breathe again. What I _didn't_ need today was a reminder of all the things I already have trouble forgetting.

When I work up the nerve and the breath to drag myself back inside Elena's got her head in her hands and she's kind of curled in on herself, with her elbows braced on the table top. She jumps when I sit back down, and puffs out a little breath between her lips. I'll just assume she's relieved to see me.

"I didn't think you'd be coming back."

"Like I would leave a perfectly good cup of coffee." And then, after a monumentally awkward silence she says,

"Are you okay?"

"Peachy. You?"

Elena goes all pink in the cheeks again and she flirts the fingers of one hand over the edge of her manila folder, and I notice for the first time that the paint on her nails matches the color of her face. She nods, and lifts the corners of her mouth, just a little.

"I'm fine, just stressed. It's been a tough few months with Mason."

"That's too bad."

I'm so fucking useless at dealing with other people's problems. _That's too bad_, what the fuck.

"Yeah."

We pause and _fuck _this is awkward, this is awkward, this is-

"He hasn't had a chance to settle in a while, and with everything that's happening…well, where Mason goes, I go."

"Perks of the job," I say, light and airy, and raise my mug to her in a toast. I'm fucking gagging to know what _everything_ is. Elena smiles this small smile, and it pulls her lips up a little more on one side than on the other, but there's nothing in her eyes that says she's even _remotely_ happy and I want to know where the hell Friday's Elena has disappeared to.

"Perks of the job."

She gets a little spacey for a moment and I just sit, silent, and give her some time to gather herself.

"Mason's a good guy," she says, finally, and I sit ramrod straight and wait for her to go on. "I've been friends with him since _forever_. He got me this job straight out of college, you know?"

As of this moment I've got two options; I can push her, just a little, and broach a few subjects surrounding Mason fucking Lockwood that make me antsy just thinking about, or I can go for _vague and a little uninterested_, and hope she chooses to open up herself. Could work, right?

"That was nice of him."

Her eyes go hard and _fuck_ I fucked up. _Idiot. _

Right at this moment, all I want to do is crawl back into the motherfucking hole I came from and never show my face again, because there's this flash in her eyes that's something a little too close to hurt and _I _put it there with my dumbass comment.

"I'm sorry," I say, quick and quiet, "that was harsh."

"Yeah."

When I meet her eyes again there's a fire there, like some of that girl from the Grill is peaking through, something just a little fierce and all kinds of trouble. But she's straightened her spine and squared her shoulders and her appearance is outwardly professional.

"The point of meeting with you," she says, "was to make apologies for Mason's behavior. It was uncalled for, and I will offer any assistance I can to fix what inconveniences his actions might have caused you."

I've known her for five days. Five days, and it fucking _deflates _me, watching her build up a business wall between us because I took a calculated risk when I fucking suck at math.

"Thank you."

Elena stares right at me, like she's waiting for more, and when nothing comes she nods once, sharp and decisive, and stands from her seat.

"Thank you for meeting with me."

I return her nod, but this professional, stonewalled Elena makes my gut twist something awful and for some stupid fucking reason I want her to smile, just once, before she leaves.

Problem is, I don't know how to make that happen.

There's a sarcastic comment on the tip of my tongue but her phone buzzes as I'm ready to say it, and when she checks it that twitch starts up between her eyes and I just _know_ who's calling her before she even says it.

"That's Mason," she says, waving her phone and folding her papers against her chest. "I should take this."

I salute two fingers and say,

"Duty calls, Hero."

And I get more than just a smile. She tosses her head back and barks out a short laugh, and her blush is genuine and her eyes are light again and there's that streak of pink I thought I saw last Friday and there's something so, so wrong with me but right now I don't even fucking care.

Elena points a warning finger my way, winks one doe eye and says,

"Careful, Salvatore, or that name might just catch on."

* * *

My first quasi serious relationship was back in high school, with a girl whose name I barely remember.

She was serious because she was the first girl I ever fucked.

We were fifteen, and we fumbled our way through because neither of us knew what the hell we were really doing, but we got there in the end and we did it again and again for maybe four months before I realized I couldn't fucking stand her.

She wasn't all too torn up about it, considering she couldn't fucking stand me either.

My next, I was seventeen, and she was eighteen, and she was the most beautiful thing on the planet and we were together for almost a year, and then we were done and that's all I need to say.

And my third began in my first year of college. She was called Rose, and she was fucking wonderful. She was smart and beautiful and _hilarious_, and I loved her.

I might sound like a complete pussy for saying it, but it's true. I did.

I loved her up until my final year, when I turned twenty one and she was rounding in on twenty three, working a real job in the real world and I just loved her and loved her until one day I didn't anymore. We were a motherfucking love story that nobody took the time to finish. We faded out.

But that's okay.

And then…well, then a lot of shit happened in a very short space of time and my whole world cartwheeled a couple times and settled ass skyward, everything jumbled and all kinds of fucked up, and I ran for home just two days after graduation, and I haven't had the balls to move away since.

Because whenever you think things are getting better…

We all know how it goes.

But, the point; in my twenty-five years of life I've loved three women and _loved_ one and I've lusted over a few here and there between, and right now? Well, right now, I'm shuffling my dinner around my plate and wondering just who the fuck Elena Gilbert thinks she is.

It's almost ten pm and I can hear my mother saying her good nights to Matt and Rebekah. Honestly, I'm dog tired, and my stomach kind of hurts and my head feels a little fuzzy and all I can do is think about a certain PA and the nasty thoughts I keep coming back to when I remember that first meeting with Mason.

I know I'm making shit worse for myself because _fuck_ I have no evidence, nothing _whatsoever_, to suggest that Mason has _ever_ nor would ever lay a hand on Elena. And yet, I've created this whole damn scenario based off of one dark look and a few possessive hands and I need to get a fucking grip before this whole situation drives me crazy.

Problem is, that's easier said than fucking done.

**A/N: Thank you once again for all the reviews and follows and favourites and just absolutely everything, you're all incredible. Truly. Sending so much love from my tiny little Liverpool flat. **

**Feedback feeds my soul, I LOVE hearing what you guys have to say. So, drop me a review and stroke my fragile ego some more, yeah? So, so appreciated. **

**See you (hopefully) next week! Much love, Someone. **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: You guys ROCK. I've said it before but I'll say it again, I am _blown away_ by your responses to this. You're all so incredible and so patient with my shitty updating and yes, I'm sorry I'm a week late. Again. Maybe every two weeks is a more realistic deadline. **

**One thing; I had no beta reader for this chapter and I'm god-awful at spotting my own errors, so if you catch any spelling mistakes or the like please just PM me or whatever so I can correct them :) Shout-out to the wonderful reviewer who did that during the last chapter. You're a star. **

**Anyways, I won't keep you waiting. Obligatory content warning; you know the score. Damon's got a foul mouth. **

**On with the show...**

* * *

Every job has its drawbacks. _My_ job has fucking thousands.

There's no glory in journalism, and any small-town writer will tell you the same thing. There's nothing worth bragging about when you've got big city counterparts catering tales to the rich and famous, while you're printing shit people wouldn't even use to wipe their asses. But, there is the occasional success story.

I, for example, wrote the article that single-handedly rocketed our little patch-of-heaven paper right onto the radar.

Thank you, thank you.

Thing about journalism, though, is that the glitz and glamour of a good story lasts all of maybe five minutes and once the applause dies down and the curtains fall, you're nothing but another dog fighting for scraps and sniffing around for your next chance to hit big.

Which, in small-town Virginia, could be and very well _will_ be a whole god damn lifetime away.

I'm painfully, painfully aware of the hands on the office clock creeping their way a little closer to two, and I've got my desk phone wedged between my shoulder and my ear, scrawling chicken scratch notes in the dog-eared paper pad Enzo tossed my way this morning when my ever-trusty computer decided she no longer felt up to the job.

I know there's a half a world out there that's got it a million times harder than I do, but it gets real difficult to look on the sunny side when Mrs Flowers is talking my ear off, telling me all about that plastic dog bowl she bought from the ninety-nine cents store Saturday gone. You know, the blue one? The one her puppy chewed up soon as she brought it home? The one she paid ninety-nine cents for?

I handled the first twenty minutes of her loop-de-loop recount as graciously as I could, honest I did. But for the last four minutes and thirty two seconds, I've been googling _death by stationary_ with my fingers wrapped firmly around my stapler.

Googling, on my cell phone. Because my computer is fucked.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; I fucking hate this place.

"I'm sorry," I say, cutting Mrs Flowers off mid-flow, "I didn't quite catch the price of the bowl."

Enzo snorts out a laugh, because he's an asshole and he knows fine well how royally I've just fucked myself, and my perpetual state of misery is something of a joke to him.

"The bowl? Oh, yes, that cost me ninety-nine cents. I got it at the ninety-nine cents store, just this Saturday gone, for my puppy."

Enzo's got this little grin that's all smug and nothing I find remotely amusing. Unluckily for him, and to my immense gratitude, there's nothing but empty space on the underside of the desk and he's just close enough that if I swing my foot at the right angle…

There's an oh-so-satisfying thud, followed almost immediately by a resounding yelp from my desk buddy and when I rock back, fists to the sky in triumph and Mrs Flowers' voice miles away in the receiver, the backrest of my chair lets out one long, low groan and crashes down onto the linoleum.

There's a pause, where the only sounds are Enzo's laughter, _ninety-nine cents_ rattling down the handset, the baited breath of every other worker in the office, and the metallic ting of the loose screw from my god damn chair as it rolls back and forth across the floor.

And a pressing, prodding silence._ That_ is the sound of my impending demise.

"What the _hell_ was that?"

You've got to be _fucking_ kidding me.

* * *

I clock out at fourteen minutes past six with a swipe of my card and a hefty I-hate-the-world sigh. Today fucking sucked. I know I've been a hurricane on the office floor all afternoon, so I'm not at all surprised that Enzo abandoned ship soon as the clocks ticked over, but that doesn't stop me being pissed that he left me in the office, _alone_, with nobody but Beelzebub for company.

What kind of friend does that?

The fucking sucky kind.

He at least has the decency to drop me a conciliatory phone call as I slam my car door and press my forehead to the wheel hard enough to leave a pretty red band right above my eyebrows.

"I'm aware it's Tuesday," he begins, no preamble, "but work was bloody awful and I'm in the mood for a couple of wind-down drinks at the Grill, if you're interested."

"Little too adventurous for my tastes." I slump back in my seat and start the car. The engine purrs for me like she does every evening when the six pm mark rolls by, and some of my anger seeps away. "But there's a snowballs chance in Hell that Alaric will turn you down. Hit him up."

"Already have." I hear glass chink on glass and ice rattle through what I can only assume to be bourbon.

"So I'm your second choice? I'm hurt, pal. Truly."

"Well maybe if you hadn't been PMSing on me all day I might have stuck around until you finished your shift, but no."

An honest-to-god laugh breaks out of my throat. It's only small, a little pathetic, but it's a laugh and some more of my tension drifts away.

"Well I'd love to, but I've got a hot date. Must dash."

* * *

Everybody has their own little tricks to unwind. Some people read, or knit, or play golf or watch television but me?

I climb.

Much like The Grill, and Rendezvous, the Hangar is the only half-way decent building of its kind in Mystic Falls. More than half-way, really. Three floors of glorious climb space, bouldering above and below and belay climbs centre stage, it's any aficionados wet dream; cheap, efficient, plentiful. And always, always empty on a Tuesday evening.

It's closing in on seven when I amble through the front doors, aiming a two-finger salute at the prepubescent walking pock-mark behind the main desk.

"Tyler, how's it going?" I drop my gym bag onto the surface and fish through for my keys. Tyler hums something about stressing over some football game or lacrosse game or whatever the hell else they play in college and I nod and force my face into something sympathetic. Like I give a shit.

"Just bouldering today?"

"'Fraid so." I swipe my Hangar key ring under the scanner and the light flashes my favourite shade of green as the barcode registers. Green means Go.

Different climbs are designed to test different strengths, and each one employs at least one of a shit tonne of complex twisty-turny moves that the pros perform like well-practiced dance numbers. And everyone's got their favorite climbs; some people prefer balance climbs while others go for stamina, but strength is my baby.

I've got a couple things working in my favor where climbing is concerned. First off, I'm a lean, mean almost-6"1 and no matter what the instructors might tell you, long limbs are a motherfucking blessing. On top of that, I've been at this since I was just a kid. I've got all the right muscles perfectly defined in all the right places and though my technique is still a little fumbly here and there, I can muddle my way through almost every climb in the Hangar.

And lastly? Lastly, by the time Tuesday rolls around every week I am without a doubt wound up tighter than an eight day clock.

The basement bouldering room is empty, as per the Tuesday norm, and my feet are already crippled in my climbing shoes, and I've got my chalk bag strapped around my waist and the conversation with Mrs Flowers still buzzing in my brain, and it's time to fucking go.

For the best part of an hour I work mindlessly on climb after climb, only stopping to gather some steam when my knees are quaking and my forearms cramp up. It's closing in on eight-thirty, frustrations mostly abated, when I realize I'm thirsty as fuck and I haven't had a drink since I started.

I don't know what it is about Tuesdays, but for some reason or other people avoid this place like the plague come the evening. Which is why the bubble of feminine laughter bursting from the front desk has me missing my mouth with my water bottle. I peak around the corner and-.

-Un-fucking-believable.

After the day I've had there's a few people I want absolutely nothing to do with, and yet here _he_ stands, in _my _sanctuary, and he's got _her_ pulled into his hip while Tyler puts up his best efforts not to ogle her.

Elena's got her hair pulled way up on her head in a cute as fuck messy ponytail, each item of clothing fitted to her every smooth curve like a glove.

Mason Lockwood is wearing shorts and a wife beater and something dirty in his eyes that makes my skin crawl.

I'm desperate to slink back down into the basement and I'll stay there all damn night if I need to, if that's what it takes to avoid any minute contact with Mason, but then Elena lets out the cutest little giggle and my hands forget how to hand and the water bottle drops to the floor with a resounding crack.

"Damon!" Elena announces, all chipper and adorable, and I don't fucking like the way she checks herself when Mason squeezes her shoulder.

"Sup," I say, bending to retrieve my bottle and mentally lynching myself as I go. "Nice to see you again, Mason."

If looks could _kill_.

There's a pregnant, unsteady kind of pause, where Tyler casts glances between Elena, Mason, and I, and for a moment none of us say anything. Elena looks antsy. Mason looks murderous.

I'd think the situation were funny if I was an onlooker. As it stands, my self-preservation instincts are threatening to kick my fight-or-flight response into overdrive.

"I didn't peg you as a climber." I direct the comment to Elena, but it's Mason who answers me.

"We've never been before," he says, "thought we'd try something new. That cool with you?"

I shrug a shoulder and take a swig from my bottle.

"By all means." I wave a hand to the room. "I'll leave you to it."

I turn on my heel and I'm at the stairs, almost home free, when Tyler's voice calls me back.

"Actually, Damon." I pause, spin on the spot. "I was wondering if you could help me out."

I can think of _at least_ thirteen things I'd rather be doing, but...

"Sure."

I stand back, quiet and seething, while Tyler runs through all the health and safety shit he's obliged to discuss with every new-comer. Elena follows each word with a nod and a smile, or the occasional _okay_, _sure_, _yeah_, while Mason chews the thumb of one hand and digs the tips of his fingers into Elena's shoulder with the other. When he takes his hand away to grip the harness Tyler offers him I can see little crescents where his nails have been.

Like he's marking his territory.

Humongous dickbag.

It takes some herculean strength to sit through almost forty-five minutes of Tyler's teaching while Mason plays Perfect Student and Elena _is_ the perfect student. Tyler could have totally done this without me. He's just an asshole.

I spend most of the time belaying Elena and standing in stony, awkward silence while Mason practices belaying Tyler. He's got it down, but I refuse to acknowledge it. Petty as hell, I know, but I can't even bring myself to give a shit.

"Alright," Tyler announces, untying himself from Mason's rope and stepping over to where Elena stands. "Why don't you belay for me," he hands her the rope I've unclipped from my harness at her nod, "And Damon can belay Mason, and keep an eye on you at the same time."

"Sounds good to me." Elena's got the brightest smile and the lightest eyes as she clips the belay loop through her carabiner and into her harness. I take up Mason's old rope and clip myself in, too, and I watch Mason weave his rope through his harness and up into the figure eight knot. It fucks me off that he's picked it up so quickly.

"I dunno, Ty," I crook the corner of my mouth in a smile and slide side-eyes to Elena. "She's got it down. I don't think she needs the supervision."

I'll bet she can feel just how hot her cheeks get, but it doesn't stop her catching my full gaze and stretching her smile further over her face. I grab the side of her harness and tug the rope around a little, to check if she's clipped herself in right, and all I can feel is Mason burning his gaze through the back of my head.

Every possessive action makes my gut churn.

"Alright, she's good," I say. I flash a wink down at her and shrink away from the elbow she sends straight for my ribs.

"Can we get going?"

Mason's wiki page didn't cite _Buzzkill_ as a middle name.

"Sure." I check his knots and nod. "Remember, the green grips are the easiest. Then black, and blue."

"And what's after blue?"

Nothing you can fucking handle yet, buddy. I smile.

"Grey," I say. "They're pretty tricky climbs though. I'd maybe stick with the low ones for now."

I feel like I'm being the better man here as Mason crouches low to the ground and sets both hands on one grey grip and plugs his toes against another two. Alright-y then. I tighten his rope up until it's almost taut, and turn my eyes to Elena.

"Alright, you remember what to do?"

Tyler pats his hands in his chalk bag and braces his fingers on his starting grips.

"Yeah."

She's already got the technique and for a few moments I just watch her, watch the concentration on her face as she tugs the ropes down, up, through, down, down again and so on, one hand always braced on the bottom rope just like Tyler told her, the very tip of her tongue poking out against her lip as she goes. My hands work on automatic; every time there's too much slack in Mason's rope, I adjust accordingly. Years of lessons tell me I should always pay full attention, but years of practice tell me to ignore what the instructors say because I know what the fuck I'm doing.

"So, I've just realized." I've opened my mouth before I have time to really think through what I'm about to say. "This is, what, the third time we've met now?"

"Fourth," Elena replies, autopilot, as she cranes her neck to watch Tyler climb, hands controlling the ropes like a pro.

I know it's the fourth time. It's just nice to know she's keeping count, too.

"Right, fourth time we've met. And I know next to nothing about you. How _weird_ is that?"

A smirk pulls the corner of her lips.

"That is just _outrageous_." I can hear the sarcasm in her tone and I pray to god she humors me. For the first time, she risks a glance my way. "What did you want to know?"

My lips pinch to one side as I think.

"Where are you from?"

"Winchester."

Been there, done that, didn't waste my hard-earned cash on the t-shirt. Winchester is just like every other small town in Virginia; I'll bet their local paper fucking sucks, too.

"It's…nice, there." It's a blatant lie, and the crooked brow she sends my way tells me she knows that.

"Glad you think so. It's…very much like here, actually."

"Mystic Falls doesn't deserve such compliments." Elena's laugh bubbles up from her somewhere deep in her chest and I can't help but smile. With her hair tied back I can see the full streak of pink on the underside of her ponytail. "Did you go to college there?"

She shoots me a surprised kind of look before her gaze flies back up to Tyler, where he's nearing the top of his climb. Mason is somewhere half way, balancing himself on a couple of grips and heaving a few breaths in. Bitten of more than he can fucking chew. Serves him right.

"Yeah, Shenandoah. Got my BA in English."

"And you're working as a personal assistant why?"

Elena shrugs a shoulder and there's a brief pause while she lowers Tyler back to ground level.

"Like I told you," she grunts, "Mason got me the job right out of college. What sane post-grad would turn down an opportunity like that?"

"Fair point," I say. Mason's struggling his way up to the next grip and I know it's cruel, and I know it's dangerous, but I can't help myself. I loosen the slack, just the _tiniest_ bit, on his rope. Tyler congratulates Elena on her efforts with an affectionate shoulder-pat and excuses himself to deal with the phone blaring from behind the desk, and it's just the two of us on the ground and Mason clinging to the wall a few meters up.

"You head back up that way often?"

She doesn't say anything for a time while she unclips herself and kicks the ropes back against the wall and out of the way. Her eyes travel up to Mason and her arms curl over her stomach, looking all kinds of uncomfortable. I'm about to retract the question when she turns back to me.

"No," she says. "My brother is away at Brown, and my parents died when I was still in school. We were in a car accident, they didn't make it out. I've got nothing to go back to."

Fuck. I hear her when she waves me off and tells me it's been years, that she's over it, but I'm not stupid. I know shit like that shakes you for the rest of your damn life.

"My dad died a few years back."

I feel like an asshole for sharing, and I probably look like one too, but for some stupid reason I can't think about what I'm saying around her before I open my god damn mouth. She spills about one of the most traumatising events of her young life and I just have to make it all about _me._

"I'm sorry," she says, sincere, and I want to bury myself a little farther into the hole I've dug.

"Don't be, he was an asshole." I say, with another shrug. She's got nothing to be sorry for. She's quiet, for a moment. And then,

"He was still your dad. Asshole or not, you must've loved him."

My rope pulls way taut as Mason's hands slip from the grips and he falls a little way before the slack catches up and he stills, dangling like a spider on a thin silk thread, panting like the idiot he is for trying a climb two levels higher than he's capable of.

I lower him down the wall and open my carabiner the moment his feet hit the ground.

"Not really."

"He raised you, didn't he?" I nod. "He was there for you when you needed him?"

Again, I nod. My stomach bottoms out when her eyes dart to Mason, who's undoing his ropes with shaking fingers, and back to me.

"Did you never feel like you _owed_ him that much? To at least miss him when he was gone?"

It must have been a coincidence, that she looked at Mason, _to_ Mason, before she spoke. I have to believe she wasn't thinking about him when she uttered those words, because the remaining option makes me sick to my stomach.

"No, Elena. I didn't owe him a thing. Not one thing."

I turn on my heel and leave before she can say anything more.

My every muscle is restless and it takes me ten minutes of knee bobbing and hand ringing before I feel calm enough and collected enough to gather my things and make my way out. Mason and Elena are nowhere to be seen when I pass through the main floor. I knock twice on the desk on my way past, and Tyler throws me a wave over his shoulder.

It's still light out, even as the digital on my cell phone flashes it's way closer to twenty-two-hundred, and there's a light breeze that raises goosebumps over my forearms. Much as I want to forget it, the tail end of my conversation with Elena is running circles through my head.

I've just slammed my car door shut when the door to the Hangar opens up and Mason and Elena make their way out.

Something like rage balloons in my chest when Mason's fingers close around Elena's wrist and he pushes her back hard against the wall. I can't see him, only the back of his fat fucking head, but I can see Elena's eyes spread wide open over his shoulder. She shakes her head once, and then again, and on the third shake her lips mold into a _no_ and I want so desperately to get out the car and kick Mason's ass for making her look so damn desperate.

But then he kisses her.

There's nothing romantic about it. He dips his head down fast and hard and his mouth hits hers with enough force that the back of her head cracks against the wall. It's over as quick as it came and he stalks away, to wherever the hell their car is parked but my eyes don't stray from Elena. She doesn't move, just stands with her back pressed to the wall, eyes squeezed shut, lips in a tight, thin line.

And then, with a deep, shoulder-shuddering breath, she lifts her hand and dashes tears from her cheek, and follows Mason's footsteps across the parking lot and out of sight.

* * *

**A/N: Once more, thank you all _so much_ for every review and follow and favourite and I cannot express enough how grateful I am. Just...keep it up, is all I ask of you. Your comments keep me fueled. **

**And one quick thing; if you're looking for another AU/AH Delena fanfiction to bide your time between updates, check out ElvishGrrl's ongoing fic _Dear Miss Lonely Love. _And don't forget to review that, too. She rocks. **


	5. Chapter 5

**THANK YOU SO MUCH OH MY GOODNESS**. **Every time I get a new review/follow/favourite for this story I'm left grinning like an idiot because your feedback is _so_ incredible. I'm just...in disbelief. Thank you SO fucking much wow. Now for a quick apology; I'm so sorry I'm horrendous at updating. I'm hoping to finish writing this in November, and then I'll be more regular with my updates. But don't hold me to that. **

**I'm so excited/apprehensive to see what you all make of this chapter. **

**Okay, obligatory content warning; Damon has a foul mouth and you know it.  
**

* * *

At nine years old, I'd tell you my dad was my hero. No hesitation. When I was ten I'd take a breath and bite my tongue but in the end, I'd stick to my convictions. By the time I turned fourteen I'd tell you there's no such thing as heroes, because even the best of men turn just a little more toxic as the years wear on. And standing where I am today, seeing all that I've seen and knowing all that I know?

I'd tell you the exact same thing.

* * *

1998 fit me like a glove.

There are some ages that just fucking rock. Eighteen, for example, is a pretty good year. Twenty-one is even better. Aged nine is by far the most superior year, pre-puberty, that any kid has the out-right pleasure of going through. It's around that time that your parents put a little slack on the leash, let you explore your surroundings with a little more encouragement and a _lot_ less supervision.

At least, mine did.

I broke my arm at nine. First time I broke a bone, and I did it in one stupendous slip and tumble from a tree in the park. I wore the cast like a war medal for three whole weeks and all my pals gawked and gaped and yeah, I took their stares like the little attention whore I was way back when.

Couple weeks after the bone knitted itself back together all nice and tidy, Dad took me out for my first climbing lesson.

You're still fearless when you're nine. I took to climbing like a goddamn champ. I was fucking Spiderman, scaling the walls faster than my dad could keep up with. The height didn't scare me.

Nothing did.

I spent most of my free time climbing that year. Dad would take me Monday and Friday and I took a class Wednesday evenings after school, and when I wasn't at the climbing wall, I was scrambling my way up anything with a rough enough surface to get a good hold on.

1999 didn't treat me so well. Ten is around the age you become a little more self-aware. The collar comes off and the bubble wrap unravels and all of a sudden you're standing with eyes wide open in this new world you've never been exposed to before. You start to really _see_ things when you turn ten. Little niggles of doubt start trickling in, and the things you thought were perfect turn black around the edges.

It was small stuff at first.

The way she would check herself when he looked at her over the dinner table, or the tears on her cheeks that she'd always, always attributed to hay fever and it wasn't until months later, when my nose was stuffy and my eyes were leaking that I realised people don't get hay fever in the winter.

As the year wore on, sharp looks turned to yells and sniffles and teary eyes morphed into red and purple blotches that turned green and yellow and took longer than they should have to fade away.

But I was ten, and he was my dad, and by virtue he was my motherfucking hero, and heroes can do no wrong.

I was eleven when I finally admitted to myself that even heroes fuck up. Heroes make mistakes. They hurt people. But they're the saviours, right? They _fix_ the problems. And he would fix his problems, too.

I was so fucking sure he would.

I was blowing smoke from fourteen candles on a homemade chocolate cake the first time I saw him hit her.

* * *

It was cancer that finally did the old bastard in. I wasn't around, for the most part. Soon as I turned eighteen, I upped and left and made myself a new home and a new life at college. I was young, and selfish, and I chose to believe that closing my eyes would make the monsters disappear.

I don't know how well it worked, but Mom was bruise-free when I flew back come graduation.

Maybe there's something to be said for burying your head in the sand. Maybe I just say that to make myself feel better, I don't know.

What I _do_ know, with absolute certainty, is that the thing that overcame every scream and shout and slap and punch was the toxic parts of Dad that grew and grew and caused more harm than good, until the bad became too much for his body to take.

But I didn't sit by that bed for him. I didn't watch him choke on the air he needed to breathe for _his_ sake.

Mom was all sunken cheeks and peaking bones when I walked through the door a couple days after graduation, my life packed in the trunk of my car and my diploma rolled up in my fist, all fucked out of shape from my squeezing it too tight every time I thought about all the things I had to come back to.

It was fucking hard.

It was hard seeing Dad so small, somebody who'd always been a huge, hulking presence in good ways and (mostly) in bad, and it took a fuck tonne of deep breathing and one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-tens to hold my shit together long enough to be in the same room as him.

But it was even harder watching Mom fall apart. I couldn't comprehend it; still can't, if I'm honest. How it broke her so _fucking_ much to watch him wilt and wither and die when he devoted half of his life to keeping her crushed under the soles of his shoes like she was nothing.

I don't even think he knew we were there by the time he bit it. He drew in one last breath, deep and full, so far from the short, shuddery gasps he'd been living off of for the past few weeks and _poof_. Gone. A lot of shit happened after that, people coming and going, offering condolences that I just didn't get because I wasn't fucking sad he was gone.

Heartless? Probably. But after everything he did, I was just…indifferent, at best. Guiltily relieved at worst.

The saddest damn thing was watching Mom spiral as the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months and she just couldn't get her feet back on the ground.

She didn't question a single thing when I moved back into my old room, and she'd pick at the meals I cooked her and watch the coffee I poured go cold in her mug and it sounds stupid, but that's the thing that worried me the most.

Because my mother doesn't fucking waste _anything_.

But, in those few months, I trashed more meals than we ate.

I should have called her out on it, the day I caught her sipping Dad's finest vodka straight out the bottle. Thinking back, I should've taken every damn unit out of the house. But I didn't.

And _fuck _do I regret it.

* * *

"Someone's looking fresh."

Today's signature look is contemptuous with a healthy dose of pipe-the-fuck-down, and I give it my best effort as I sink into my desk chair for the first time since Tuesday. In place of my old coal-fuelled fossil there's a shiny new monitor, all matte-screened and HD Ready and entirely too good to be used as an e-mail-viewer for the rest of its foreseeable existence.

Much as I'd like Enzo to keep his trap shut with regards to my appearance, I know he's not totally wrong.

I imagine I look about as hot as I feel. And, that being the case, I no doubt look like a sack of shit. But fucked if he has the right to comment.

"Fresh to _death_," I say, voice dripping with every ounce of sarcasm I can filter into it. Enzo snorts and taps the space bar on his keyboard a couple times.

"Did I miss much?"

"Let me think." Enzo settles back in his desk chair and I wiggle enviously in mine. The backrest gives a squeak ominous enough to still me. "Wednesday, you missed bugger all. And yesterday…" he taps a finger against his bottom lip and his eyes slide skyward in thought. "Oh! Yesterday," he sits forward, craning over the space between our desks with eyes big as saucers, full of something I can't place, "nothing happened."

"Riveting." Little fucker.

I'm tired as anything and everything feels unsettled, and much as I didn't want to come into work today, I've only got one sick day left before I'll have Bonnie breathing down my neck about a doctor's note and I don't feel like opening that can of worms just yet.

My time over the last two days has largely been split between the warmth and comfort of my bed, and the cold, unforgiving tiles on the bathroom floor. I've got images like light-spots burning the backs of my lids every damn time I close my eyes.

It took me until two-thirty in the morning on Wednesday, heaving over the toilet bowl with a cold sweat across my shoulders and hate burning like bile in my chest to admit to myself why this entire Mason-Elena debacle has been fucking with me so much. And there's nothing like a trip down Memory Lane to drive the motherfucking point home.

"Quiz night at the Grill." Enzo's voice breaks me out of my own head. I plaster on a lop-sided smirk and tap in my email address and password.

"Count me in."

Always up for a little friendly competition and _fuck_ I could use a drink.

I spend most of the morning leisurely replying to e-mails from the last two days, most of which are residual shrapnel from my article about Mason. My gut clenches every fucking time his name crops up on the monitor and by the time lunch rolls around I feel sick to my stomach.

Food is the absolute last thing on my mind and when Enzo whips out some noxious sandwich mix that _nobody _else on the planet would _ever_ think about putting anywhere near their food-hole, I make a dash for the door.

God bless fresh air.

I swing by the corner store and buy a bottle of water to sip on and take myself for a walk through the park to cool off. The fickle little bitch controlling the weather has been steadier today, and it's almost balmy, save for a breeze that registers just a degree or two above chilly and raises goosebumps over the skin under my shirt sleeves.

There's a row of benches on the edge of the footpath, sheltered from the breeze and shaded from the sunlight by a couple of trees blooming some blush-pink flowers. I feel all kinds of nasty, nauseous and I can't catch my breath, and I'm sick to fuck of hearing the name _Mason Lockwood_ thrown around the office.

I'd hoped work would be a welcome distraction, take me out of my head a little, but I couldn't have been more fucking wrong. My head's pretty void of anything that isn't Mason or Dad or Mom or Elena and the four of them loop round and round until I'm dizzy, and breathing is kind of difficult, like they're wrapping themselves tighter around my lungs as they go. _Fuck_ I feel like hell. It doesn't take long for me to start shaking, and the cold sweat I've been battling for the last two days makes its reappearance with a fucking _vengeance. _

I couldn't give a rat's ass about the looks I'm getting from snotty little kids and their snottier parents as they pass me by. All I can concentrate on is trying to draw in one solid breath at a time.

It's a weird feeling, when your skin tightens in around muscle and organ and bone until it feels a couple sizes too small for the rest of you. I have to curl in on myself, elbows on my knees and my neck bowed low, to make everything fit together a little better.

And I'll stay here until this internal shit-storm dies down.

* * *

My chest is still all kinds of tight and uncomfortable when I slink back into the office a little after one-thirty, but I feel less hot and my skin feels just about the right size for the rest of me which is a _monumental _improvement from my…whatever the hell it was back in the park.

Enzo doesn't say a thing as I sit back down and unlock my computer. Besides the many forwarded queries from the web page, I've got little else in my inbox. One e-mail tells me, for the millionth _fucking_ time, about the leak in the water mains that no fucker has _ever_ bothered to fix. Another comes from a kid at the high school, asking if it would be _at all possible_ to _conduct a short interview_ about the highs and lows of working in journalism.

My stomach drops as I read the subject heading of the last unread e-mail.

_Mason Lockwood. _

I just can't catch a fucking break today.

_Hi Damon, _

_I don't know if this is of any help to you, but I thought I'd let you know that Mason Lockwood was in The Ambassador this morning. According to Caroline, he booked a room for the weekend, and he was with a lady friend. She said they seemed close. _

_Again, I'm not sure if this is of any value, but now you know. Maybe you can use it for a follow-up article?_

_Kind regards, _

_Liz. _

I glance up at Enzo, who's typing like lightning across his keyboard and I just _know _Caroline had one other ear to please before she told her mother about Mason. My ribs squeeze in a little more when I think about him, his name and his hotel room and his _lady friend_. My heart gives a horrible little jolt behind my sternum, hard and unexpected enough to have my hand shooting to catch it before it beats its way out.

I shoot Liz a quick reply, something full of _thank you_s and _Hope you're well_'s and one quick _Give my best to Caroline_ despite knowing I'll see her tonight, before I close my e-mail and pin the top of Enzo's head with a stare.

"Hey," I say, and swallow down the very real urge to gag as I pull the next sentence from the back of my throat. "Did you hear Mason's booked himself up in a fancy hotel tonight?"

Enzo rocks back in his chair and waves a hand at the screen.

"Bonnie gave me the go-ahead to write it up just before lunch." And then, before I have a chance to rag him about how exactly he knew of Asswipe's whereabouts _before_ lunch, he adds, "Caroline dropped me a text from work."

Caroline Forbes is one handy dandy motherfucker to have on your side when journalism's your game. Why? Because she works like, four different jobs per week. She's got eyes and ears _everywhere_.

Problem is, Caroline's loyalty does not lie with me.

* * *

Seven pm and I've shaken most of my nerves, and there's a double bourbon on ice waiting at the bar when I sidle up to my usual stool. Alaric raises his glass and downs the remainder of his drink in one gulp.

"A little birdie told me _you've_ been under the weather the past couple days."

I roll my eyes and sip the liquid from my tumbler. The Me in my head has been so _fucking_ ready for this drink since Tuesday, but it's a battle to swallow it down and the burn in my gut isn't as pleasant as it used to be. Shattered vodka bottles and limp limbs blur my vision and I push the glass a little further away from me.

"Oh yeah?" I say, and I ignore the way Ric's eyes follow my drink as I shove it across the bar. "And was your feathered friend blonde and blue-eyed? Or British and unable to keep his trap shut?"

Alaric's brows rocket to his hairline. Jesus, I need to ease the fuck off.

"Enzo expressed his _concern_ for a friend."

My cheeks heat cherry red and guilt cuts a hollow in my stomach.

"Sorry." I scrub a hand over my face and stare at the optics behind the bar. "Been a shitty week."

Ric claps a hand against my shoulder and squeezes. It's about as much comfort as I'll ever get from him, and it's more than I'd ever want.

The bar is bustling with the usual Friday crowd, and they're all split into small groups and gathered around individual tables, pen and paper at the ready, as a man I've seen a couple times and never retained a name for sets up shop on the stage.

Quiz night.

Ric and I mutter and mumble between ourselves for maybe five minutes before Enzo blusters in. I slide him my drink without a word, and he knocks it back without question.

"Let's find a seat," Enzo says. "Before all the tables are full."

Enzo and I cram around a little rounded table right beside the bar while Ric collects the answer sheets. Enzo doesn't say a damn thing, but I can feel his eyes burning holes right through my temple and all I can do is dog-ear the corner of a beer matt and avoid any questions he might be thinking of asking. I don't fucking _like_ people worrying about me. I'm a big boy - I do just fine on my own.

"Alriiight." Alaric slams the answer sheet onto the table top and drops down into his chair. "Hope you've got your thinking caps on, kids."

"Always," Enzo gripes, tip-tapping his fingers against the edge of the table.

It's my teeny-tiny handwriting skills that earn me the position of scribe. No fucker on the surrounding tables is stealing our hard-thought-out answers if I've got any say in the matter.

The man on the stage gives the announcement that the quiz will start in five minutes and I've got my head well in the fucking game, because I _am _one of those assholes who get overly competitive at the most trivial of things. Sue me.

In fact, I'm so engrossed in the build-up to our imminent victory – because I'm taking nothing less than a win here – that the entire Mason-Elena-my life history fiasco is completely out of my mind.

Until she breezes through the front door.

I'm so damn thankful she hasn't noticed me because I'm staring right at her like some kind of idiot. She looks cute as hell in leggings and a sweater a couple sizes too big for her, with a pair of knee-high boots that lace right the way up her shins and her legs go on for _miles_. Her hair's pulled up in the same messy pony tail she'd had it in on Tuesday and that sends my heart into a nasty off-beat rhythm just thinking about.

And she is _supposed_ to be in a hotel room with Mason.

**Thank you once again for reading, and _please please please_ leave me a review and let me know what you think. You'll keep me motivated while I cry into my copy of The Human Bone Manual and try to learn everything there is to know about the appendicular skeleton in time for my assessment in two weeks. Your reviews might _just_ get me through. **

**AND BEFORE I GO: huuuuuuge thank you's and hugs and kisses to Jenn (Elvishgrrl) for not only proof-reading this chapter for me, but for recommending this fic in her authors note. You have no _idea_ how much that means to me, and it directed a lot of traffic to this fic that I probably didn't deserve. So THANK YOU Jenn and and even bigger THANK YOU to everyone who reads and reviews and follows and favourites and all that jazz. I love you all. **

_**(p.s my tumblr is someone-stole-my-shoes and there is a really important Jenn-related link in my Fanfiction and Other Stuff tab that I want you all to check out please please please and thank you.)**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Huge great big THANK YOU and also sorry for being rubbish. I've had some awesome, awesome feedback from the last chapter and a special shout out to lovetoreadaa, who left me the most INCREDIBLE lovely fabulous reviews and I'm blushing just thinking about them. Angel. You're all beautiful and wonderful and everything and I don't know what else to say, besides KEEP IT UP! **

**Now that I've got that out of the way, here's chapter 6. **

**Obligatory content warning; Damon's foul mouth, and mentions of past drug use. **

* * *

There's this weird thing that people do, where you stare at something or someone and you know damn well you're doing it, and you know you fucking _shouldn't_ be but for some stupid reason, you just can't stop.

That's me right about now.

Elena braces her elbows on the bar and smiles at Caroline, who's reaching for a glass before Elena's got time to order.

It's Caroline who catches me first. I've not a doubt in my mind that she was scouting the bar for someone a little taller, a little darker, and decidedly more British than myself, but she locks her gaze with mine and this stupid little grin quirks one side of her face.

The Me way in the back of my mind pipes up with a hollow _look away, idiot_.

But since when do I ever listen to my own advice?

Elena follows Caroline's line of sight and big brown eyes land on mine. Her eyes pop just a fraction wider when she sees me and her lips tug up at the corners, fingers dancing in this tiny, insecure wave and when I lift my hand to wave back, I crack my knuckles against the underside of the table. Alaric snorts into his drink and I hoof a foot in the very general direction of his shins. Little shit.

I can feel how red my cheeks are when I glance back at the bar. Elena's got her hand over her mouth and her eyes are dancing, like she's holding back her laughter and part of me wants to be pissed that she's laughing at me, but I'm too busy being over-the-moon happy that I've put that look on her face.

What the hell am I turning into?

I stand up before I know what I'm doing, my knees knocking the edge of the table and making waves in Enzo's bourbon, and I've got no fucking idea what I'm supposed to do now. What I do know is that I can't stand here like the idiot I am and keep staring at Elena. Caroline isn't even trying to hide the humor in her face as I approach the bar, sheepish and all kinds of uncomfortable.

Elena beams a grin at me when I reach her, planting herself on a bar stool and hooking the heel of her boot over the foot rail. Caroline sets a shot on the bar, and Elena knocks it back without so much as a grimace.

"Double or single?" Caroline asks. She's got a glass pressed under one of the optics, beneath a bottle of house vodka. My heart skips one nasty, uncomfortable beat.

"Do you really have to ask?"

Her smile says she's joking, but my spine snaps ramrod straight when Caroline adds a second measure to the glass.

She takes the proffered drink, topped with something red and fruity, and sips down a delicate mouthful.

"I'm starting to think," she says, setting her glass on the bar and folding her palms against her knees, "that you're following me."

"Hey now, _I _was here first." I force my face into something like affronted. Elena shakes her head on a laugh and when she lifts a hand to her chest, eyes all humble and feigned-innocence, the smell of cherry hits my nostrils so hard my eyes damn near roll back in my head.

"You're absolutely right," she says, voice diplomatic. "You were at the climbing wall first, too. I swear, I'm not a stalker."

My gut clenches almost painfully and a band raps around my lungs hard enough to knock the wind right out of me. I white-knuckle the edge of the bar and force my lips into a smile, but there's a flip-book play by play of her interaction with Mason outside the Hangar taking center stage and it's making breathing awfully hard.

"I'm a nice guy," I say, and I hope I don't sound as breathless out loud as I do in my own head, "I think I can forgive you."

Elena smiles, but there's something quizzical in the little crease that forms right at the top of her nose, and in the way her brows dip just a fraction of an inch lower and I turn away to breathe my four-seven-eights until my sympathetic nervous system cools the fuck down.

"Are you alright?" she asks me, and I jerk, realizing too late I've been staring at nothing for well over a minute now. I'm about to answer when Enzo's voice barks from the table.

"Salvatore! Get over here and sit the fuck down."

I scowl over at him, but I'm thankful as fuck that he chose that particular moment to be an asshole.

"I should get back," I say. And then, "Would you like to join us?"

From the corner of my eye I see Caroline's Cheshire Cat grin over one of the ale taps.

"Sure!" Elena says, all bubbly enthusiasm. I push from the bar and she pauses.

"Didn't you want a drink?"

Fuck.

"No time." I duck away from the question. "Quiz'll start in a minute."

Elena shrugs me off and follows me back to the table. The bar is full as fuck and I can't see a spare chair in sight, and I'm about to offer Elena mine when she turns to the group next to us, where two men are standing in front of their seats, shouting shit across the long table to anyone willing to listen.

"Excuse me," she says, tapping the taller guy on the shoulder. She glances up at him through her lashes and her teeth pinch the side of her bottom lip. "I'm really sorry to bother you, but are either of these chairs free?"

She rings her hands together, all wide-eyed and naive as fuck, and the two men fumble over each other in their efforts to push their seats towards her, floundering out shit like _by all means_ and _here, take mine_, and Elena takes one of the chairs with this breathy little 'thank you' that would send just about any man to his knees.

She drops her prize down beside me and settles herself on it, smug-as-fuck little grin on her face, and takes another sip of her drink.

Who even is this girl?

The guy on stage introduces himself as Jaxson with an X, and informs us that our first round will be music based. The roar of the crowd dulls to a hum. My yes-we-fucking-can attitude has lulled itself to something a little more Elena-oriented, but I fall silent along with the rest of my team.

"Question one," Jaxson begins, "in 1979, Queen reached number one in the charts with what song?"

Alaric picks up the pen before I have a chance to and scribbles _Crazy Little Thing Called Love_ in the designated answer section.

Enzo whispers the answer _Johnny Marr_ to question two, and when Jaxson reads question three there's a collective holler from the bar's occupants that has me rolling my eyes. Elena's gaze trails over the crowd before landing on me, a query furrowing her brow.

"The Cure," I say, quiet, in the unlikely event that some patron doesn't already know which band topped Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks with _Friday I'm in Love. _"It's a bar favorite. As I'm sure you'll soon find out."

Elena just nods in understanding and knocks back the last mouthful of her drink. It makes me twitch, thinking how fast she put it away.

"Where's Mason tonight?" I ask, and I'm acutely aware of just how tight my voice is. Elena bristles beside me, rubs the empty glass between her hands.

"He's busy." Her voice is short and, if I'm not mistaken, about three thousand octaves higher than it usually is. She doesn't lift her eyes from her glass for a full minute or two, but when she does I see a flash of something like desperation, but it's gone before I can get a good look at it.

I know I shouldn't pry, that it's bothering her to think about, but I can't help myself.

"Work stuff?"

"Hot date," Elena says, her tone _almost_ sarcastic. But she's fidgeting with the rim of the glass, running her thumb back and forth over the lip and her gaze is kind of hazy, like she's thinking a little too hard about something.

I think about Mason being anywhere near her and my spine pops itself into place.

Jaxson announces question number eight and I see the top of our answer sheet full of words scrawled in Alaric's chicken-scratch, and it occurs to me in that moment that I haven't introduced Elena to my friends. Now feels like a damn awkward time to start, so I sit tight and listen to the next three questions before Jaxson calls for a ten minute refreshment break.

I open my mouth to talk to her but her seats vacant. She's ahead of the mass of bodies at the bar, and Caroline is adding the second measure to her glass.

Fuck me.

"Isn't that your PA friend?" Enzo asks, with a wave in Elena's direction. I nod, grit my teeth, and try to ignore the nausea making my gut roll. I wish she'd stop with the fucking vodka.

When she wades her way back through the masses and drops down into her seat, her glass is already half empty. Ric's brows raise to his hairline and he nods to her drink.

"Thirsty?" He says, and Elena's cheeks turn a damn cute shade of pink, but my stomach lurches unpleasantly when she takes another sip.

"Necessary," she says, and I remember this time last week, when she said the exact same thing and I realize it wasn't a joke then and it isn't a fucking joke now.

"What's your poison?" Ric asks.

"Vodka."

"How many is that, Boozy?" Enzo has his arms crossed and his eyes flit from Elena to me. He's a good guard dog is Enzo, but now isn't the time. Alaric shuffles a little in his chair.

"Relax, it's only my second."

"Single or double?"

"Why does it matter?" Elena asks. I can feel the chill coming off of her and I want to tell Enzo to lay off.

"Measures say an awful lot about a person."

"Claws away, pal." I force a little pleading and a lot of false authority behind the gaze I shoot Enzo's way before turning, apologetic as hell, to Elena. "Ignore him, he's a dick."

She smiles at me and turns an ice cold gaze on Enzo.

"Noted."

* * *

Jaxson's opening round four and I'm clenching every clenchable part of me as the tension bleeds from both Elena and Enzo, who haven't shared a damn word with one another in the last twenty minutes, when Elena leans close to me and hisses in my ear.

"If your friend thinks this is bad, he should've seen me in high school."

Now _that's_ interesting. I try to keep my curiosity in check, but I must miss some muscle control here and there because Elena lets out a low sigh and swipes her hand back over her head and through her ponytail.

"I went through a…let's call it a _phase_, after the accident."

A memory jump-starts from somewhere in the back of my mind and tunnels all the way from belaying Mason to the incident outside the Hangar, snippets of conversation – _car accident_, _they didn't make it_, _asshole or not, you must've loved him_ – snapping their teeth right behind my eyes and making my lids pinch closed with every recalled word.

"I remember my rebellious youth phase," I say, wistful and a little louder than necessary in my efforts to drown out her voice inside my head. _Did you never feel like you owed him that much?_

Elena snorts, gathers some bar grim against her thumb nail where she's running it back and forth through a groove on the edge of the table.

"I went a little further than _rebellious youth_."

I dig my fingertips into my thigh and ignore the nasty, familiar dread creeping from somewhere low in my gut.

"What could be worse than Budweiser and cheap cigarettes in the park? Or were you one of _those_ kids? Did you wear hoodies in the middle of summer and shout at old ladies?"

She blows out a small, ironic kind of laugh and levels her gaze to mine.

"I was a house drinker. Started on the hard stuff. Whiskey, gin, rum…whatever I could get my hands on." She sighs and drops her eyes back to her glass, thumb nail nicking over the rim. "And then came the drugs."

She sounds nonchalant but her face is kind of tense, like she's dredging up memories she'd rather leave well enough alone.

"Just pot, at first. And then I tried pills, and powders, and before I knew it I was snorting lines of cocaine and gumming the residue."

"Kid stuff." I grit the words out through clenched teeth, and though I try my fucking hardest to sound comical, it comes off a little tense and distant and she looks at me like she knows she's triggered something toxic.

"Fond memories." She's all sarcasm when she raises her glass in a toast and tosses the last measure back, and I force a little smile, but it _breaks _me, hearing about the things she's done and the lengths she's gone to to pacify whatever was festering in her, somewhere so deep she didn't feel like anything less than poison would be strong enough to stop it.

"I can say, on no uncertain terms," I say, tone hushed as Jaxson-with-an-X kicks off his next question, "that you've had a far more adventurous youth than I."

Elena flashes me a wink and folds her arms across her chest.

"Exciting times," she says, then leans across the table and taps the answer sheet. Ric and Enzo turn thought-furrowed brows her way. "_Rules of Attraction_." Enzo's frown deepens to something a little more like a scowl, and Elena rolls her eyes. "2002 movie directed by Roger Avery. _Rules of Attraction_."

Enzo looks like he wants to argue, for no reason besides being a dick, but Alaric boots a well-aimed kick to his shins and he snaps his jaw closed, something like offense clouding his eyes.

Elena turns back to me and smiles, all kinds of sweet and innocent with just a dash of mischief, any hint of past tension dissipated like the last five minutes didn't even happen. My stomach pulls a little tighter and something warm settles somewhere behind my sternum, and as much as I want to say something witty, all I can do is return her smile and try not to look like too much of a fucking loser.

I just watch her as she relaxes into the bar atmosphere, and every shy smile and genuine laugh swells the ball of warm-and-fuzzy building in my chest. I can't help noticing she doesn't touch another drink for the rest of the night.

And you know what? I fucking _like_ seeing her happy. And I make a promise to myself now, as she throws her head back and laughs and her eyes light up with every ounce of Happy she has, that I will stop anyone from making her feel anything less than this.

Starting with Mason Lockwood.

* * *

Mom's cleaning away the last few dishes in the kitchen when I press the backdoor closed behind me, a tornado of fucking _feelings_ ripping itself through my head and making the backs of my eyes ache.

"Good night?" she asks, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and dropping her palms to the bench.

"Spectacular," I say. It's only half a lie. She smiles because she's my mother, and she knows when I'm lying and more importantly, she knows when I'm telling the God's honest truth.

"I'm glad." She piles some plates into one of the cupboards and turns on her heel, slow and a little calculated and _fuck_ I know what's coming.

"I saw Abigail today," she begins. I give her my biggest bestest eye roll and drop into a stool, elbow on the counter and my chin in the palm of my hand. "She said you had a date."

"Abigail's a dirty liar." Mom whirls the damp corner of the kitchen towel on me and it cracks against my forearm.

"Uncalled for," she snaps. "Were you or were you not out for lunch with a woman?"

"I'd like to speak to my lawyer."

Mom shoots me a withering glance and scoffs.

"It's a simple question."

"I know my rights."

She tosses her arms skyward and stalks over to the fridge, muttering a string of somethings like _what am I going to do with you_ and _insufferable little-_ and, though I don't hear it I know she says it, because she _always _says it, _this is not how I raised you._

"The article I wrote on Mason," I say, and she pretends she's not interested but I see her shoulders prickle and her back snaps a little straighter and she's not fucking fooling anyone. "He didn't take it all too well. My _date_ was with his PA."

Is that…is that _disappointment?_ Whatever it is flickers and dies in her eyes before I get a good look at it, but she's gone all…lax, and her face looks a little more drawn, and I try not to let it bother me. She opens her mouth to say something, but the kitchen door swings open and a pair of bright blue eyes peak into the room.

"Sorry if I'm interrupting," Matt says, and a huge, gaping part of me wants to punch him in the face. Just looks punchable. "Is there a time you need us gone by tomorrow?"

I stare at the toes of my shoes while Mom talks shit with Matt for a good fifteen minutes, and in that time I notice four scuffs that didn't used to be there, and a couple frays in the laces. Mom heaves a loud sigh when Matt leaves and I try my hardest to ignore her, but she does it again, louder this time, and I grumble under my breath.

"What?" I snap. Mom shakes her head.

"When was the last time you _actually _went on a date, Damon?"

Oh for fucks sake. I don't even try and hide my irritation, but when I meet her gaze with the strongest glare I can muster her eyes are swimming.

"It doesn't matter."

"You don't need to put your life on hold for me."

I pinch the bridge of my nose and force my anger down. I _so_ do not need this conversation right now.

"I'm not," I say, "I'm busy. Work and all."

"Don't lie to me."

"Look, Mom, it's late." I stand up and push the stool under the counter. Avoidance is my default tactic. "You should get some sleep."

She gets this way every single time some young, moon-eyed couple stops at the boarding house and every time I'm left feeling like the sack of shit I am for disappointing her. At the end of the day all she wants is for me to be _happy_. To meet a girl and fall in love and start a family and do all the things right that she did wrong.

But it's fucking hard, you know?

It's hard when you think things are going okay, that you can finally move the fuck on with your life and you think the things you're leaving behind will keep themselves balanced and orderly and _alive_, but everything always, _always_ fucks itself over one way or another and you end up right back where you started.

I make a pit-stop at the wet bar and gather up a few of Moms personal favorites: the Smirnoff she insists on keeping there for guests, and the wine, and the one bourbon brand she'll resort to when I've hidden everything else, and I lock everything in the top drawer of my dresser.

If she gets desperate she'll go for the expensive scotch, but she can never guzzle down more than a measure or two before the burn repeats on her.

And sure as anything, it's closing in on midnight when I hear the first tinkling of glass downstairs.

* * *

**Please please please don't forget to leave me a REVIEW, every single one gives me the kick I need to keep going when I feel like throwing in the towel. This fic is becoming my baby. It's flawed and stressful and a bit disastrous but I've put so much time into it now and I do kind of love it, and I would like to know if you do, too! **

**Huge thanks to my friend Jodie for proofreading for me, you're a star pal. **

**ALSO for those fans of my pal Elvishgrrl, go check out her profile for a link to purchase her DEBUT NOVEL it's really good I promise and you should all read it because yeah.  
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